Leading Engineering Group President visits the School of Engineering at the University of Limerick

The current President of the UK-based Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Ed McCann, was welcomed to the Faculty of Science and Engineering at UL yesterday (06/10/2022) for a seminar with the students, faculty and practicing engineers of the School of Engineering.

The ICE group is one of the world's biggest representative bodies of civil engineers with 95,000 members. Mr. McCann is also a Senior Director with Expedition Engineering, a pioneering engineering firm responsible for projects such as the multi-award-winning London 2012 Velodrome and the Infinity Bridge. 

Addressing the students, Faculty and practicing Engineers of UL Mr. McCann said: “As engineers, you are part of a global family that is designing, building, and operating the infrastructure necessary for humanity to survive and thrive on this planet. The challenges we face in the future are enormous, and we need to figure out how to stop damaging the environment with our work to maximise the impact of what we are doing for people.”

He went on to emphasise the response of the Institution of Civil Engineers and engineers in general to climate change, in the context of current global inflationary pressures.

Tom Cosgrove, UL Chair of Civil Engineering welcomed Mr. McCann to the University. Prof. Cosgrove recalled Mr. McCann’s previous visit when the Civil Engineering programme was at an early stage of its development. As a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Innovation at that time he was looking at the innovative project-based methodology used at UL.

Mr. McCann’s visit comes in a year when graduates of UL’s engineering programmes have achieved significant success nationally and internationally. Aisling Hahessy, a Senior Structural Engineer with engineering consultancy firm Arup, was awarded Engineer of the Year by Engineers Ireland while Dr. Ronan Royston, a Chartered Engineer with Ward and Burke Construction was awarded the James Rennie Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). These successes and Professor McCann’s visit highlight the innovation of the teaching practices and the quality of the graduates coming from the School of Engineering at UL.

More information about the BE in Engineering (LM116) can be found here: https://www.ul.ie/courses/engineering-common-entry