It is of vital importance to the profession and the general public that structural engineers continue to maintain and develop their competence throughout their career and all professionally qualified members of the Institution (excluding retired members) are expected to undertake CPD each year.
In recent years, structural failures around the world, such as the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Miami, a mezzanine floor at the Indonesian Stock Exchange and a masonry wall at a primary school in Edinburgh, have highlighted the need for members to maintain their competence in structural safety. As such the Institution is of the view that our members should demonstrate a commitment to structural engineering safety and should aim to gain at least six hours of structural safety related CPD each year.
The Institution strongly encourages individuals to engage with the activities of Structural Safety (
https://www.structural-safety.org/) which includes CROSS updates (or the equivalent). However, there are many ways members can demonstrate competence and suitable activities may include, reading structural failure investigation papers, structural safety papers and journals as well as learning in areas such as structural robustness, disproportionate collapse, structural reliability and structural inspections, monitoring, and maintenance.
As many failures occur during construction or demolition, useful reference may be made to advice from the Temporary Works Forum or toolkit articles published in the Structural Engineer.
This element of CPD will be measured as part of the annual CPD submission cycle and feedback will be provided to any individual who does not demonstrate the expected level of commitment.
As with all CPD, it is important for members to reflect on the learning undertaken and highlight on returns how this may have altered their professional behaviour.
John Veares
Chair, Professional Development Panel