Development engineering meets development studies

Abstract

The importance of science in development has been increasingly recognised in development discourses and policy since 2000. Engineering is less visible though engineering and engineers are important for the building and maintenance of transport, water, energy, industrial, informatics, urban and health systems. This article aims to investigate why engineering has not received more emphasis, including why development engineering has not been institutionalised like tropical medicine. It explores the nature of engineering in development, highlights recent efforts to headline engineering for development and, using analyses of what engineers know and do inside international development, suggests that its profile and effectiveness is emerging.

Keywords:

• Development
• engineering
• inclusive innovation
• knowledge
• policy

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Open University Innovation Knowledge and Development research fund, and the Inclusive Innovation and International Development Strategic Research Initiative.

Notes

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2. See Forbes and Wield, Followers to Leaders; Kaplinsky with Posthuma, Easternisation.

3. Robbins et al., “Mapping Engineering.”

4. Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science, 1.

5. Nganga, Boundary Organisation.

6. De Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science; Vincenti, What Engineers Know.

7. Juma and Yee-Cheong, Innovation.

8. Clark and Frost, “It’s not STI.”

9. Juma, Redesigning African Economics; Juma, Innovation and Its Enemies.

10. Petroski, Essential Engineer.

11. Juma, Redesigning African Economics; Guthrie, Juma, and Sillem, Engineering Change.

12. Robbins, “Reflective Engineer.”

13. Chataway et al., “Inclusive Innovation”; Heeks et al. “Inclusive Innovation for Development.”

14. Radjou et al., Jugaad Innovation; Leadbeater, Frugal Innovator.

15. Neill, Networks in Tropical Medicine.

16. RAE, “What is Engineering?,” RAE website, accessed 10 March 2016.

17. Lundqvist, reported in Edgerton, Shock of the Old, 100.

18. Edgerton, Shock, 208.

19. “Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmark State: Engineering,” 6.

20. Gibbons, et al., New Production of Knowledge, 1994; Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science.

21. Bucciarelli, Designing Engineers.

22. Massey, Quintas, and Wield, High Tech Fantasies, 1992.

23. Meikins and Smith, Engineering Labour, 92.

24. Smith, Technical Workers; Whalley, Social Production of Technical Work.

25. Noble, America by Design.

26. Darwin, Unfinished Empire, xii–xiii.

27. Trevelyan, “Reconstructing Engineering from Practice,” 175.

28. Vincenti, What Engineers Know, 6.

29. Rogers, quoted in Vincenti, ibid., 6.

30. See Mackenzie and Wadjman, Social Shaping of Technology; Bijker, Pinch, and Hughes, Social Construction of Technological Systems.

31. See Forbes and Wield, Followers to Leaders; and Kaplinsky with Posthuma, Easternisation.

32. Levi Strauss, 2004, 11, quoted in Cleaver, Development Through Bricolage, 34.

33. Levi-Strauss, 2004, 11, quoted in Cleaver, Development Through Bricolage, 34.

34. Robbins, “Reflective Engineer,” 99.

35. Robbins, “Reflective Engineer,” 100.

36. Layton, Revolt of the Engineers.

37. Dunn, Appropriate Technology; Schumacher, Small is Beautiful.

38. Robbins, “Reflective Engineer,” 105.

39. Faulkner, “Nuts and Bolts and People.”

40. Mosse, Cultivating Development, 1.

41. eg Hirschmann, Exit, Voice and Loyalty; Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa; Amin, Unequal Development.

42. HEFCE, RAE 2008, 8–9.

43. HEFCE, Research Excellence Framework, 98.

44. HEFCE, RAE 2008, UOA 43 Subject Overview Report, 5.

45. Mohan and Wilson, “Antagonistic Relevance.”

46. On this point Mohan and Wilson quote Hansson, “Interdisciplinarity: For what Purpose,” 342.

47. Mohan and Wilson, “Antagonistic Relevance,” 273.

48. Mohan and Wilson, “Antagonistic Relevance,” 273.

49. Mohan and Wilson, “Antagonistic Relevance,” 273.

50. Hirschman, Development Projects Observed; Hirchsman, “Case against ‘One Thing at a Time’.”

51. Cleaver, Development through Bricolage, i.

52. Green, “Fit for the Future,” 2.

53. See Robbins, Wield, and Wilson, “Mapping Engineering and Development Research Excellence.”

54. Forbes and Wield, Followers to Leaders, Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge, Mohan and Wilson, “Antagonistic Relevance,” Cleaver, Development Through Bricolage.

55. Robbins et al. 2017. “Reflective Engineer,” for further details.