Theme 2 of 5: Forget the T-shaped Engineer and Designer, we need the iconic I-Beam

Philosophy, Engineering and Technology

Theme 2 of 5: Forget the T-shaped Engineer and Designer, we need the iconic I-Beam

Disclaimer: these short thought articles are the interpretive summary of the writer, please refer to the references and authors provided to authentically explore the ideas presented.

Do you remember having this drilled into you at university: that to be effective engineers/designers we need to train to be a T-shaped person? Someone who can bring specialist knowledge into a team (the I-shape) with some generalist knowledge in your field (the horizontal breadth in a T-shape), which facilitates interdisciplinary work and innovation. I recall that class as a student and years later as a lecturer I have heard my colleagues teach the same. While we all need a dose of Mr T, could there be something missing?

Marc Steen at fPET 2023 shared his work in transdisciplinary Innovation, bringing the quadruple helix; academic research (universities), society, businesses and government/policy, central to their projects at TNO (The Netherlands' Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). He also suggests from the literature that a 5th strand is missing bringing in nature and instinct. With these strands, co-shaping the future can be possible and has been used and shared by other practitioners in various ways, as double, triple or quadruple helices. The benefits work towards the ideal of an equitable and sustainable society. That unintended harms are avoided and blind spots that each silo may have can be discovered early and addressed.

While we are working hard to develop into T-shaped engineers and designers, this largely equips us to work within teams with other overlapping disciplines; the design team communicating with the manufacturing team, the manufacturing team with the procurement team etc. However, the larger leap needed in transdisciplinary is still largely missing. Cue the iconic I-Beam.

?While the I-shape suggests a narrowly focused expert, the I-Beam is so much more. It's a person with the top horizontal generalist knowledge in their field, vertical expertise within their discipline and the bottom breadth of skills to work with stakeholders (policy makers, business owners, academics, community groups). As the most widely used building structure in the last century, the sleek, efficient and stable I-Beam has given us so much, it seems fitting that we bring this iconic feature into our education frameworks too.

References of interest:

Co-shaping the Future in Quadruple Helix Innovation System.