UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Materials Scientists and Engineers make responsible choices on behalf of society as part of their everyday activities. We decide what to research, and who to accept funding from in order to do this research. We make products from the fruits of this research because we can rather than because we 'should'. We can choose to spend our lives improving weapon technology, conserving art or creating environmentally friendly materials. The way we conduct our research and what issues we consider important influence which problems we try to solve. We try to make cars and aeroplanes faster without due consideration of the affect this will have on society.
Who did we ask when we assumed that this would have a beneficial effect in the long run? There are some implicit assumptions about progress which are made by scientists and engineers which are rarely checked out by the people doing the research. If these issues are considered it is by the social scientists who rarely, if ever, actually influence scientists on these matters.
This meeting which is being co-hosted by the UK Centre for Materials Education and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (the RSA) will bring together materials scientists and engineers in industry and academia to discuss the way forward in developing a social and ethical conscience within undergraduate and research students regarding the development and use of new materials in society.
| 09.30 | Registration and coffee |
| 10.00 | Caroline Baillie: Welcome and introduction |
| 10.15 | Collection of questions, issues, suggestions |
| 10.30 | Andrew Haslett,
Group Technical Director of ICI: Asking difficult questions (of myself) |
| 11.15 | Work in small groups involving TRIZ Coffee available during this session |
| 12.00 | Phil Ball,
Consultant Editor of Nature: Nanoethics and the purposes of new technologies |
| 12.45 | Lunch |
| 13.45 | Sheila Bloom,
Director of the Institute of Global Ethics UK Trust: Tough Choices: a framework for personal responsibility - an interactive session on the practice of ethical decision-making and the exercise of personal responsibility |
| 14.45 | Panel discussion with Andrew Haslett, Philip Ball, Sheila Bloom, Lewis Elton, George Smith and Michael James Platts; chaired by Caroline Baillie |
| 15.15 | Plenary and wind-up |
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| 15.45 | Tea and informal discussion |