Viewpoint: How to Tackle the Skills Shortage in Electrochemical Engineering

David Bogle argues that only greater collaboration and smarter curriculum integration will close the UK’s growing skills gap in this critical sustainability field

ELECTROCHEMICAL engineering sits at the crossroads of the energy transition, with chemical engineers playing a vital role in developing the sustainable technologies needed to decarbonise our future. Yet the UK is falling short in cultivating the right skills at the scale required. At a recent Faraday Institution-hosted roundtable, I joined representatives from academia, industry, government and professional institutions (including IChemE) to confront the growing skills gap in electrochemical engineering.

Chemical engineering is central to the sustainability challenge. Much progress has been made in making operations more sustainable – using less energy, reusing waste, and shifting towards renewable electricity. Electrochemical energy generation and storage – through batteries, fuel cells and electrolysers – is a critical part of this.

But with electrochemical engineering playing a central role in the energy transition, the meeting focused on a key question: are we producing enough graduates with the skills needed to drive it forward?

Key issues

An advance briefing paper highlighted four key issues: a critical shortage of skills in electrochemical engineer­ing; insufficient industry alignment and scope within existing curriculum components; and the need for curriculum reform.

Yet, many courses in chemistry, chemical engineering and electrical engineering still lack sufficient coverage of electro­chemical topics. And while we’ve seen UK chemical engineering undergraduate numbers on the climb in recent years, the overall skills problem will suffer from the 21% drop in chemistry undergraduates since 2017 and the closure of some departments.

It was suggested that one way forward might be to make them compulsory, enforced by accreditation. This was discussed, but in my view, accreditation should not be used to enforce specific topics. Its purpose is to ensure a course provides a broad and in-depth development of technical and professional skills. I made the point that while all chemical engineering students should be taught the basic principles and key applications of electrochemistry, the more specialised aspects of electrochemical engineering are not essential for everyone – a view that also applies to chemistry and electrical engineering courses. These topics are better suited to advanced modules, allowing departments to offer credits aligned with their particular areas of expertise.

From what I see, only those chemical engineering departments with electrochemical engineering expertise can offer such modules – and this is not true of all departments, in fact probably rather few. In recent decades, departments have been encouraged to focus their research in areas where they have critical mass, making them more attractive for industry collaboration. However, this focus has created a conflict between building research strength and ensuring widespread access to teaching expertise. To alleviate this there needs to be greater sharing of course materials and facilities between departments. Increased collaboration between universities is being discussed, but financial pressures and market competition rules remain significant barriers. However, collaboration at discipline level is much easier and could be better facilitated by IChemE and the joint heads of chemical engineering departments.

A new SIG

Greater industry-academia collaboration was felt to be crucial in helping bridge the skills gaps, with internships and guest lectures cited as examples. The creation of a new IChemE electrochemical engineering special interest group (SIG) would be the critical enabler to help chemical engineering respond to this challenge (see page 39).

There was a strong call for more industrial placements to give students hands-on experience and inspire careers in the field. However, such opportunities are often limited, particularly as many SMEs lack the capacity to support student placements. Given the high number of small companies in this sector, universities should explore ways to support them with training and supervision, enabling the SMEs to make the most of interns’ technical contributions. Universities need to find ways to accommodate shorter internships during the academic year, rather than relying solely on summer placements, which can create staffing challenges for small employers. Students would then get exposure to issues in the sector, although not the depth.

Addressing the skills gap will require not only training new entrants but also practical and flexible approaches for upskilling and reskilling mid-career professionals at all levels – technicians, graduates and PhD level researchers – and practicing engineers looking to switch sectors. This will need more flexible modular provision by universities and training promoted and supported by professional societies such as IChemE. A campaign that raises awareness of opportunities and career pathways – similar to the Destination Nuclear initiative – could help attract more people to the sector.

There was a call for curricula reform, enabling all chemical engineers to get some exposure to the basics of electrochemistry. In my view the most effective (and efficient) way forward for chemical engineering courses is to embed more examples related to emerging technologies within core modules such as heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics and reaction engineering where oil and gas and extraction technology examples still dominate. Some do this but it is not common, perhaps because those teaching these modules do not have experience of electrochemical engineering problems. Greater sharing of examples – perhaps through the IChemE Education SIG – and even parts of modules would help. Ideally, textbook authors would be encouraged to include them too but that would take a lot of time and more informal sharing would be quicker and more dynamic.

While some departments have incorporated electrochemical problems into design projects, this remains limited. If an Electrochemical Engineering SIG was created it could serve as a hub for sharing expertise across the community. This collaboration could extend to the use of larger equipment for teaching purposes, with leading departments making their research facilities accessible to broaden student exposure to the latest technological advances. Achieving this would require financial incentives and support from funders such as UK Research and Innovation, with shared facilities recognised as contributing to research impact.

We need to highlight the career pathways and potential salary levels in this fast-growing sector. Now that electrochemical engineering features in the UK’s new Industrial Strategy, the time is right to bring it fully into the heart of the chemical engineering curriculum.

We must move quickly and decisively. A thriving electrochemical engineering SIG, shared resources and smarter integration into curricula can help ensure we have the talent pipeline needed so the country can deliver on its environmental promises for the next generation.

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A report of the meeting by the Faraday Institute can be found at here https://bit.ly/faraday-roundtable and contains a range of practical suggestions, including a national CPD platform for electrochemical engineering.