E4C Joins a Research Collaboration to Combat Climate Change

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Engineering for Change has joined an international collaboration to research technologies to combat climate change, a project called “Decarbonization through Digitalization.” The collaborators include our umbrella organization the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI), the German Association of Engineers.

E4C’s Fellowship Program will support the work while ASME and VDI investigate approaches engineers can take to mitigate climate change in Germany, Europe as a whole, and the United States. The research will center on fossil fuel dependency, both in terms of the various geopolitical drivers that affect the issue, and the role major corporations play in actively addressing the problem.

Learn more about E4C’s Fellowship Program

“Working together with VDI reflects the international nature of the challenge and unites leading engineering professional societies in a concerted effort to help decarbonize the atmosphere through digital technologies,” ASME’s CEO Tom Costabile says.

The six-month project launched in August and will involve four graduate-level or early-career professionals—two American and two German—to serve as Fellows. Over six months, the Fellows will conduct collaborative research and work with mentors from the ASME and VDI networks. They will also join E4C’s global network of more than 200 past and current Fellows, learning cross-cultural skills and interdisciplinary approaches while building their professional networks.

At the conclusion of the Fellowship in early 2023, the results of the research will be published on the Engineering for Change platform and disseminated jointly by ASME and VDI. In addition, progress reports will be published in real time.

Read research reports on E4C’s Impact Projects

“The global challenges we are facing require international cooperation,” VDI Managing Director Ralph Appel says. “Collaborating with ASME gives VDI the opportunity to especially support our students and young professionals in their competence development as well as their intercultural and networking capabilities. The skills honed through these Fellowships will also better equip them to help successfully implement decarbonization efforts in the future.”

The ASME-VDI collaboration is an extension of the E4C Fellowship program. Since launching in 2014, E4C has awarded more than 200 Fellowships to early-career engineers from more than 40 countries. Half of all E4C Fellows are women, who are significantly underrepresented in the engineering community. The annual E4C Fellowship cohort includes more than 50 graduate-level engineering students and early-career engineers who pursue a wide array of impact projects, all of which address one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The E4C Fellowship commences in November 2022 and concludes in April 2023 with publication of their research findings.

The E4C Fellowship is one of more than a dozen philanthropic programs supported by the ASME Foundation, which funds initiatives aimed at empowering next generation engineers by increasing equitable access to the engineering profession and helping to build a more sustainable future.

This article is adapted from a press release at asme.org. Read the press release: Two Top Engineering Societies Collaborate to Support Climate Research.