Introduction to Biotechnologies and Biomimetics for Civil Engineering - Biotechnologies and Biomimetics for Civil Engineering - page 6

environmentally friendly construction materials are needed. However, not only is
important that civil engineering curricula are updated so they may give future
graduates appropriate skills to tackle the sustainable development challenges but it
is also important that enough students are interested in following a career as civil
engineers. Unfortunately, in the last decade, several Western countries have
reported a severe applications reduction to civil engineering. A 50 % reduction
was reported on undergraduate applications to civil engineering in UK (Byfield
2001 ; Edwards et al. 2004 ). In the UK, a shortfall of 9,000 civil engineers is
predicted to occur until 2013 (Byfield 2003 ).
Nedhi ( 2002 ) also confirms that civil engineering is not traditionally viewed as
''high tech'' engineering and, as a result, student quality and enrollment have been
declining across North America. The same also applies in the case of research
funding in civil engineering programs. This also reduces the possibility of
attracting high grade students. Also in my own country (Portugal) the reduction on
the enrollment ratio exceeded 80 % in the last 5 years. To make matters worse, in
the last 5 years, the grade of the last student to be admitted has fallen in all the top
three Portuguese Universities meaning that civil engineering is less and less
capable of attracting high grade students.
In the beginning of the twenty-first century, Yurtseven ( 2002 ) already men-
tioned that a general problem was common to all engineering professions thus
affecting negatively the student recruitment. He stated that engineers were viewed
as dull individuals by contrast ''to the image of a true renaissance engineer,
Leonardo da Vinci who was creative and literate… an accomplished painter,
architect and scientist.''
The explanation for that can be found in the words of Zielinski ( 2003 ) who states
that ''the traditional narrow technical formation produces graduates that are, using
the German language expression ''fachidiot.'' It is then of no surprise that engineers
are often satirized as persons with zero social skills. For Hamill and Hodgkinson
( 2003 ), the responsibility lies in the ''invisibility'' of the civil engineering profes-
sion, the absence of positive role models, low starting salaries, and unattractive
working conditions. Lawless ( 2005 ) mentions that South Africa faces the same
recruitment problem. Adeli ( 2009 ) also mentions that the low enrollment ratio of
students in civil and environmental engineering at many US universities constitutes
a problem to be dealt with. This constitutes a strange fact in a country where civil
engineering is viewed as a profession with high industry demand. India, a crucial
worldwide player, is also facing a severe shortage of civil engineers to achieve its
huge infrastructural development targets. Again, as it happens in the US, the demand
is not the problem (construction industry in India needs civil engineers). This rea-
son, however, however seems insufficient to motivate Indian students. Part of the
explanation for the low attraction capability of civil engineering relates to the fact
that, in India this course is viewed as ''brick and mortar engineering'' (Chakraborty
et al. 2011 ). Even the ''the word ''civil'' in ''civil engineering'' is anachronistic and
does not represent the works of the so-called civil engineer.'' As a consequence,
civil engineering is ''the only engineering discipline to have a name that does not
represent the works it undertakes'' (Shings 2007 ). All of what was wrote can be seen