Paving the way towards a Warwick Humanitarian Engineering Centre
Georgia Kremmyda
Volkan Degirmenci
This project will achieve a basis for the future development of a Warwick Humanitarian Engineering Centre. By the end of the project, a network of internal and external contributors will be established, human resources will be teamed up for the Warwick Humanitarian Engineering Society, which will encompass academic staff, non-academic staff and students, and an interdisciplinary module under the topic 'Introduction to Humanitarian engineering' will be introduced. The plan is to introduce a Warwick Humanitarian Engineering Centre that will include teaching and research alongside humanitarian engineering. The teaching/learning process will lead highly trained professionals to provide better designs and systemic solutions to humanitarian challenges, while simultaneously the research process will help build trust and ownership amongst the stakeholders and facilitate the implementation of new solutions. The centre's activities could also be used by other innovators and communities to solve humanitarian problems.
The teaching plans of the current project include the introduction of a new interdisciplinary module, 'Introduction to Humanitarian Engineering', with the creation of further interdisciplinary modules in the near future around the same theme, i.e. (a) Energy and humanitarian challenges; (b) Sustainable Developments in Emerging Economies; (c) Infrastructure in Emergencies (Water supply; Sanitation; Shelters; Energy supply); (d) Emergency and Crisis Management (disasters and emergencies; management of effective humanitarian relief; assessment, planning and management of emergency response; how communities and individuals are affected by disasters). At the current phase the project can reach all UG and PG students of several departments, i.e. Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, Medical Sciences, Business and Economics, Politics and International Studies, who can become members of the Warwick Humanitarian Engineering Society and act voluntarily towards the scope of humanitarian engineering. The interdisciplinary module will be available to PG students from the aforementioned departments, who could undertake it and enrich their knowledge and skills towards this theme.
Several parties will be involved in the project, including Warwick students and staff from several departments, external specialists in the field of humanitarian engineering: academics and non-academics from other universities such as University College London, Loughborough University, Coventry University, etc.; and voluntary bodies/organisations such as Engineers without Borders, redr UK, Manisha UK, Refugee Action, Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, WES etc.
Dr Georgia Kremmyda is the Civil Engineering Degree Leader, responsible for the delivery and management of teaching at undergraduate and MSc levels in Civil Engineering within a unified School of Engineering, providing also leadership in curriculum development, administration, liaison with industry and other activities.
Dr Volkan Degirmenci is an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering. His teaching and research interests are in the field of Catalysis, bio-renewables and sustainable production of energy and chemicals.