A creative world to discover and innovate; Science and Engineering

Britain has an extraordinary record of scientific and technological achievement. A Japanese university study says we have been responsible for more innovations in recent centuries than any other nation. Yet we fail to take pride in this extraordinary achievement by our scientists and engineers.

These talented professionals shape the world. We rely on them for the buildings in which we live and work, the supply of energy and clean water, medicine and health care, communications and transport and sanitation. They put man on the moon, built the Channel Tunnel, harnessed nuclear power, created the internet. They help us to understand both ourselves and the universe we inhabit.

Moreover, they are the only people who can solve many of the world's most acute problems - a growing population with finite land for food production, poverty, water shortages over vast areas, devastating floods, the wasteful use of energy and materials from non- renewable sources, pollution-causing climatic change and environmental damage, and Aids and other diseases.

So why is it that more young men and women are not attracted to this creative world of discovery and innovation which can be of so much benefit to mankind?

John Archer, principal of Heriot-Watt University, suggests that schools often put over an inaccurate and sometimes negative image of science and engineering to their pupils. He says: "Opinion-formers in schools don't know anything about engineering, because it's not a schools discipline. They see science as being physics and chemistry, biology and mathematics - and many teachers are not discipline specialists in those areas, even though they've ended up teaching them. Teachers have a lot to answer for I'm afraid."

He also says that the media does not project many positive images of science and engineering. "There aren't the local heroes and role models to aspire to, although when you think about it, Bill Gates is an engineer, most astronauts are scientists and engineers... people who have some excitement associated with them."

Parents too "think of the professions in terms of law, medicine, accountancy, and maybe education, but they don't often think of science and engineering in that context".

But as he points out, the career options for scientists and engineers extend far beyond their immediate disciplines. "The experience people have in undertaking science and engineering degrees in terms of understanding quantification and analysis fits them for a whole variety of careers. For example, I believe scientists and engineers occupy more senior management and board positions in British industry than do accountants or lawyers or any other degree group.

"My own university is increasingly working with the people who help form those images back in the schools. It's a slow process though."

Dr Vince Hughes runs the postgraduate programme at Portsmouth University's department of mechanical and manufacturing engineering. He says recruiting students on to engineering courses is getting more difficult, "although the job market for engineers is much better than people realise. Good people are in relatively short supply in engineering. As soon as someone you put in the category of good student - a reasonable postgraduate student or an undergraduate with a first or 2:1 - the job market is very good." One of his recent students started work on a salary of pounds 33,000.

He also thinks schools have a big influence on attitudes to engineering careers. "At times you hear of youngsters being told `you're too good to be an engineer'."

Professor William Powrie, head the department of civil and environmental engineering at Southampton University, says: "If you look at the first degree disciplines of FTSE-100 company directors, the most common discipline is engineering. As an engineer you can contribute to technological advances and so on, but equally it is very good training to go into many other different careers."

He says young people are sometimes deterred from engineering because "the profession doesn't always present itself in a very forward way". Moreover, unlike other professions, it doesn't make a clear distinction between the different levels at which people operate. "If you look at medicine, you have surgeons, doctors, nurses and hospital porters. With engineering you have a similar range of activity, and yet we all call ourselves engineers. So many people do not have a very clear idea in their minds of what engineers do.

"You can go into engineering and you'll find your own level, from a fairly mundane job to the leader of some truly awesome project such as the Millennium Dome."

On the value of engineers to society, he cites the work undertaken in his own department. "The problems we are researching are essentially the major issues facing society - transport, waste, energy, water and the environment. Once you have an engineering degree you have a fantastic tool-kit and the ability to recognise, define, analyse and ultimately solve problems. It's not a soft option, but it provides you with highly transferable problem-solving skills."