Abstract:

Introduction:
Female representation within Mechanical Engineering as a National Average within the United Kingdom is only 11.2%. This creates an environment of dominant masculinity whereby female students suffer from low self-confidence, self-efficacy and experience of isolation. To address this issue, a project has been launched “50% for the future”. The ambitious project funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering diversity impact programme, strives to develop a strategy, via evidence-based, beneficiary defined interventions, to increase the female representation within Mechanical Engineering. The strategy will inform inclusive professional practice throughout academia and the wider mechanical engineering profession.

Aim:
The targeted beneficiaries of the project are females studying Mechanical Engineering (ME). This focused remit conducted at Swansea University (SU) will provide a deeper understanding of the unique underlying issues, to allow for targeted interventions. However, when processing project data, valuable insight will be gained regards all minority groups currently studying ME at SU. It should be emphasised that a co-creation approach has been adopted throughout the project to ensure inclusion and the broadening of awareness around ME as a suitable and rewarding career-path for all.

Methods:
The scoping work for “50% for the Future” was initiated in September 2021. To capture the true voice of the beneficiaries, a working group (WG) was established that comprised a diverse representation of our ME student cohort, academics, industry and IMechE.

Following this, the second stage of data generation was obtained through extensive surveying of both male and female students to gain informed insight into:
- Why am I studying Mechanical Engineering?
- Now I’m studying Mechanical Engineering.
- My future in Mechanical Engineering.

Results:
From the project scoping activities which had the clear aim of increasing female student numbers in the DME, three problem areas were identified by the WG as needing to be addressed to both help to achieve this long-term aim, as well as to provide more immediate positive impact for the beneficiaries:
1) Address misconceptions around Mechanical Engineering;
2) Address the negative impact of the dominant masculine environment;
3) Improve confidence of female students to remain in ME sector, i.e. negate the “Leaky pipeline”.

From the second stage data gathering via student surveys clarity can be drawn on the motivating factors for choice of GCSE’s and A levels in the context of ‘Why am I studying Mechanical Engineering?’ when comparing males against females. Also, within the survey data results inform insight into the ‘Now I’m studying Mechanical Engineering’ and ‘My future in Mechanical Engineering’. Again, the data characterises the perception from both a female and male perspective.

Conclusions:
The research highlights three problem areas that act as a barrier to widen access to females into Mechanical Engineering. The research results also provide evidenced based data that quantifies the motivation factors that need to be exploited to enhance and support female students studying mechanical engineering. From the research output clear guidance can be obtained on valued interventions/outreach/curriculum content that will make mechanical engineering more inclusive for females.

Acknowledgement:
This study was conducted under the financial support of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Diversity Impact Programme EDI2122-1-132

Keywords:

Mechanical Engineering, gender balance, diversity impact, higher education.