the vision for civil engineering 2025

A diverse group of civil engineering and other leaders, including international guests, gathered in June 2006 to actively participate in the Summit on the Future of Civil Engineering. Their purpose: articulate an aspirational global vision for the future of civil engineering addressing all levels and facets of the civil engineering community.

Today's status of civil engineering served as the Summit's benchmark. Examples of current issues and trends noted at the Summit include the poor condition of the infrastructure in many nations, the occurrence of corruption in the global engineering and construction industry, the minimal involvement of civil engineers in the political process, the need to more fully embrace sustainability, the globalization of engineering practice, and the desire to attract the best and brightest to the profession.

Summit participants see a very different world for civil engineers in 2025. An ever-increasing global population that continues to shift to urban areas will require widespread adoption of sustainability. Demands for energy, drinking water, clean air, safe waste disposal, and transportation will drive environmental protection and infrastructure development. Society will face increased threats from natural events, accidents, and perhaps other causes such as terrorism.

New Pressures

Technology and market forces place additional pressures on how civil engineers play out their roles. Knowledge-based civil engineering software increasingly shifts routine engineering tasks from the realm of the engineer to that of the technologist and technician. How will this trend play out in the years ahead? Will civil engineers move further into a systems role?

Civil engineering risks becoming commoditized. Clients and owners may increasingly use low-bid procurement-and thus the lowest innovation denominator-rather than qualifications-based selection and its opportunities to provide the best life-cycle options.

Further, how will civil engineers in advanced nations react as the need to have project teams all in one place continues to shrink and lower-cost engineers from rapidly expanding technological workforces around the world vie for a piece of the

global economic pie? Will economic forces expand the pie with more work for all engineers or will barriers be erected to slow the negative affect on local employment? How will civil engineers gain the needed knowledge of international business practices and cultural and linguistic issues, and will they further address corruption in the global engineering and construction industry? These factors challenge the status quo. As a result, some, now dominant countries may have a diminishing global role in engineering research and education and in the 

application of new technology

.