We are the IET
Watch our short overview video of who we are and how the work we do aims to inspire, inform, influence and change perceptions, supporting the global engineering community to make a difference and evolve and adapt for the future.
Developing our Strategy 2030
Work to develop our Strategy 2030 started some time ago and included most colleagues in the IET, even if you didn’t realise it.
Back in 2019, we started to ask managers, and their teams, to think about how they could work together with colleagues from across the Institution to support our societal challenges (more on these later!). We used the annual planning process to understand how teams planned to work collaboratively to deliver activities linked to the challenges, with our customer groups in the forefront of their thinking.
Last year, we asked colleagues from across the IET to work together to form strategic themes (again, more on these later) and start thinking how we could introduce them to change the way we work.
Our strategy
In November 2020, our Chief Executive, Nigel Fine, gave a Town Hall presentation about the IET Strategy 2030 and what it means for us all. Here's what he said:
Over the next 10 years we have some ambitions and outcomes that will steer us in the right direction.
Ten years may seem a long way off, but we need a narrative of where we want to be by then and a plan of how we’ll get there. And when things get in the way, which they will, we will need to review this, change our course, but always with the same destination in mind.
“Our Strategy 2030 is about what we do over the next decade to maintain our relevance for industry, practitioners, academia and society. Each part of our strategy is of equal importance, and combined, will ensure we serve our audiences better and benefit society more.”
What’s our purpose?
Working to engineer a better world
Working to engineer a better world is why we exist and why, for the past 150 years, we’ve been using our influence, knowledge and expertise to champion the role of engineering and technology in the future of our society and our planet.
Climate change and the global pandemic are currently, without doubt, the most difficult and important engineering challenges of our time.
There are also vast opportunities that technology opens up for us, whether that’s connecting people across the world, developing systems that offer us all longer and healthier lives or using less of our natural resources.
Engineering feats and the technology advances we have not even dreamt about yet will be fundamental in solving these problems and embracing the future.
As we look to the IET’s next chapter, we need to continue to deliver solutions to evolving global challenges and remain relevant in an ever-changing world.
How we’ll do it
Inspire, Inform and Influence
We have to continue to inspire, inform and influence the many audiences that we serve, while remaining a diverse home for engineering and technology.
We’ll share knowledge that helps make better sense of the world in order to solve the challenges that matter.
We‘ll inspire the engineers and technicians of tomorrow to make sure that we have the greatest minds to help us solve the challenges the next 150 years may throw at us.
And we’ll influence governments and industries across the globe to build engineering excellence into their education programmes and their professions. It’s why we continue to be a trusted institution and why we are uniquely placed to be the voice of engineering and technology.
Who we do it for
Our audiences are the reason we are here, and we must put them at the heart of everything we do.
We need to remain relevant to our members, researchers, policy makers and communities to stand the test of time. Our audiences are the reason we are here, and we must put them at them at the heart of everything we do.
Critically, we must join together, across the IET, to show our audiences the breadth and depth of everything we can offer them, from primary school to retirement and at every stage of their lives.
We also need to be relevant to society and will lead societal discussion in areas that we have expertise in and where we can solve global challenges. We must have solutions that are relatable to the public, society in general, governments and children.
The way we work
Our values are the way in which we work to achieve our mission and our vision.
Integrity
Operating professionally and ethically to gain trust, we must be open and honest with each other and respect everyone, valuing each other’s contribution.
Excellence
Delivering the highest level of service and satisfaction, using agile methods and seeking innovative solutions to add value. Our role is to continually improve and adopt best practices for the good of engineering and technology.
Teamwork
Continuing to work together and recognise the value of talented individuals working in our teams and in our volunteer communities. More than ever we must be collaborative within the IET and with our remit to partner with other likeminded organisations.
Our strategic themes
Our strategic themes will help us to frame our solutions, build strong propositions and bring together everything we do, across our directorates. It will ensure we develop a ‘one IET’ view of each strategic theme and our full portfolio.
We will work across our staff and volunteer teams to create value that supports our audiences to deliver engineering and technology solutions through:
- Engineering Excellence
- Skills, Learning and Networks
- Research Solutions
- Thought Leadership and Policy
- Education
Engineering Excellence
2030 Outcome: Membership of the IET demonstrates a highly professional engineer/technician.
2030 Ambition: Our reputation for excellence draws a professionally registered membership of 100,000.
We’ll do it by:
- Setting, upholding and consistently raising standards for engineering professionalism and practice
- Being the most diverse, inclusive home for those who would like their professionalism recognised
- Being more authoritative, bold and facilitate (lead) technical discussion around topical issues
- Being a vocal champion of engineering best practice and ethics
- Raising the profile of engineers and the registered engineer/technician to be meaningful to the public
Skills, Learning and Networks
2030 Outcome: We connect and develop people to make better engineers and technicians.
2030 Ambition: Our value is recognised by a membership of 200,000 with a global engineering/technician digital audience of 1,000,000.
We’ll do it by:
- Engaging all engineers and technicians in IET content on a ‘digital delivery first’ basis
- Becoming the first of mind in the facilitation of networks for the transfer of engineering and technical knowledge
- Curating content from trusted providers to populate a hub of deep engineering knowledge
- Become the leader among PEIs in offering skills and learning solutions to drive the overall “rounding” of engineers as they enter industry for the first time, or as they transition from one discipline to another
- Providing the individual with the ability to demonstrate their credentials
- Evaluating membership subscription and other business models
Research Solutions
2030 Outcome: The IET is a leading provider of workflow solutions to the global engineering and technology research communities and is a Learned Society of world renown.
2030 Ambition: We solve world problems as the engineering and technology community’s best information, intelligence and analytics provider [ranked in the top 10 for market share].
We’ll do it by:
- Building our status as a learned society of world renown to fill the increasing need for trusted partners in providing services in research discourse
- Evolving our presence in research content and communities to incorporate commercial, government and academic research activities
- Expanding our activity beyond publishing so the IET is known instead as a solution provider of intelligence and analytics
- Becoming the leading open research institution in engineering and technology
- Being the information provider of choice for the engineering and technology sector, with specialism in chosen fields
Thought Leadership and Policy
2030 Outcome: We are the leading evidenced voice of engineering and technology influencing societal debate.
2030 Ambition: Our influence is seen in society every day.
We’ll do it by:
- Reinvigorating our position as the leading evidence-based voice of the engineering and technology profession
- Taking a clear, confident, evidence-based position on key issues affecting society to influence the global public debate
- Being the source of choice of independent information for policy makers
- Facilitating the exchange of ideas, opportunities and information that increases the efficiency, adoption and success of engineering and technology innovation
Education
2030 Outcome: We champion engineering and technology education.
2030 Ambition: We significantly increase the numbers of quality engineers and technicians entering the workforce.
We’ll do it by:
- Influencing to ensure Engineering and Technology elements of STEM become a core part of the UK curriculum
- Becoming the most complete STEM education provider
- Becoming the “go to” place for engineering education expertise and thought leadership
- Being an exemplar of STEM education delivery strategy and teacher training/CPD
- Providing support and guidance for all routes into an engineering career
- Being a recognised global leader in engineering academic accreditation
Our societal challenges
To continue to be relevant to our stakeholders and ensure we are resilient enough to survive the next 150 years we must look beyond our immediate horizon to how we will make a difference over the next 10 years.
To do this we have chosen five Societal Challenges where the engineering profession and the IET can make an impact. Each is inspired by the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 challenges and the UK’s Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges.
- Sustainability and Climate Change
- Digital Futures
- Healthy Lives
- People-centric Infrastructure
- Productive Manufacturing
Our societal challenges will focus our efforts more sharply for added impact, while providing direction and purpose for the IET.
By working together, we can build compelling propositions for each of these areas that support and meet the needs of our stakeholders and society.
This will demonstrate and strengthen the IET’s reputation and credibility to be a trusted and recognised authority on these topics.
Our first priorities have been Sustainability and Climate Change, and Digital Futures, while building roadmaps for Healthy Lives. As we move forward with our strategy we will add in the other Societal Challenges to our focus. Find out more about our Sustainable Planet activities from 2020.
Our operational expertise
Main Boards and Operating Directorates
Our operational expertise in found across Membership and Professional Development, Knowledge Services and Solutions and Governance and External Engagement directorates, supported by our Main Governance Boards.
These departments lead on our products, our innovations to solve practitioner problems and societal challenges, public policies, influence and services. They each have their own strategic direction and deliver incredibly important products such as Inspec, Career Manager and Open Access journals. They provide relevant, inspiring and up-to-date knowledge and learning, deliver insight and intelligence to enable effective and innovative research, support government to adopt effective engineering and technology solution and inspire children across the globe to think positively about engineering.
It’s our job to make sure every audience knows who we are, what we can do for them and why we are the Institution to do it.
Resources
We need resources that able us to continue to do the great work we do. They are our finances, estates and our strategic planning colleagues who make sure that the reserves that we hold and the money we make can be put back into delivering on our purpose.
The refurbishment of Michael Faraday House will ensure our estates reflect the modern, relevant and inclusive organisation that we are and will continue to be. We could not have done that without a strong strategy for building reserves and investing in our future.
Ultimately, the outcome is that our increased impact is delivered within sustainable budgets and with adequate reserves. It allows us to deliver societal benefit over the long term in a financially sustainable way.
Digital
Digital is a key area that we will transform over the next 10 years.
As digital technologies change, the IET must take advantage of the opportunities they present, with the ability to adapt, scale and be flexible to enable new solutions within a changing work environment. We will continue to take advantage of new technologies that enable the organisation to do things differently.
Our Know Your Customer (KYC) programme is an example of this where we have been phasing out old technologies, bringing in new Microsoft Dynamics platforms and cleansing our data so that we may be able to benefit from enhancements to our member, volunteers and customer experience.
Digital transformation will enable us to achieve the goals of the next decade, with a focus on the digital member and customer experience, content, user journeys, data analytics and insight.
Our ambition is to enable a set of best in class Member and knowledge solutions and services meeting the needs of our Members, our academic, corporate and industry customers across the globe.
Our People
We recognise that we can only achieve our vision and goals by the collective efforts of everyone here.
Like many organisations, we have recognised the need to adapt how we continue to do great work today and for the future. We have shifted to home-working due to the pandemic, but this has helped us to expedite the greater remote working capability we had planned to adopt. We see a high level of remote working continuing in the future.
Our Strategy 2030 for our people depends on our ability to have the right skills, capabilities, jobs and culture that ensures our organisation remains resilient and thrives for the long term.
We want to be known for being a progressive, inspiring, safe and inclusive workplace where everyone is supported and enabled to do their very best work for the IET, and people aspire to join us. And we want to inspire every colleague to bring their best contribute to our vision of working to engineer a better world.
Our Volunteers
Equally our volunteering is central to the life of the IET and to achieving our aims now and in the future. We continue to strive to ensure that volunteers have the competencies and resources to help deliver our strategic aims.
Our volunteers deliver vital services such as professional registration, mentoring and accreditation. They also help us inspire young people into the profession, share knowledge through communities, contribute to publishing, build good governance and apply expertise to influence stakeholders and government.
With over 40 different volunteering roles and types of engagement across the IET it is important each volunteer remains engaged with the IET’s purpose. By developing a Volunteering Engagement Strategy, we can continue to enable the individual achievements of each of these roles whilst ensuring the relevant breadth and depth of expertise.
Engagement
Our engagement strategy underpins our reputation as a respected charity that inspires, informs and influences the global engineering community and society.
We are a global organisation, inspiring the next generation of engineers and promoting how engineering touches the lives of everyone. It is a diverse home for engineering and technology throughout the world, from those developing skills in new engineering capabilities to those perfecting established skills.
Our messages need to be clear, inspirational and credible. Our dialogue, open and honest. We must enhance public and stakeholder confidence in engineering and technology, highlighting the role they play in engineering a better world. We must promote engineering and technology as a great career choice, regardless of an individual’s gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability or socio-economic background.
We protect and enhance the reputation of the IET by explaining and promoting the work of the entire organisation across the globe. By broadening our propositions to provide customer-centric solutions to support our audiences and by increasing our use of data and insight to be able to deliver digitally focused, customer-centric solutions.
To build staff engagement we will develop a constantly evolving internal communication programme, ensuring our internal teams feel engaged and empowered to support the IET’s Strategy 2030.
Our activity needs to support all the strategic priorities with a particular focus on demonstrating public relevance and building a narrative for the IET across our audiences.
Our behaviours
How we work together to deliver our objectives is just as important as what we do to deliver them.
Our behaviours should be part of our annual performance review, as well as ongoing discussions with our line managers.
Here’s some examples of how we expect our behaviours to be evidenced in the delivery of our Strategy 2030.
- I include everyone
- I do my very best
- I take full ownership
- I work well with others
- I openly communicate
Your part in our Strategy 2030
So, now you have heard about the areas that make up our 2030 strategy. But how will we know we’re heading in the right direction?
We have outlined a set of ambitions and outcomes for each societal challenge and each strategic theme. We will be building in regular strategic review cycles, outside of the planning cycle, so that we can make sure we are focusing our attention on the right activities and that we are making the right choices.
We already have these ambitions and outcomes across our directorates but this year, for the first time, we reflected these ambitions in our planning round. Each directorate knows the part they have to play, working with and across directorates to achieve our Strategic goals to 2030.
It’s important we each understand these, and we understand how we can deliver them.
What can I do to make the strategy a reality?
Well, you have already started to contribute to Strategy 2030 becoming a reality because you have taken the time to read and absorb the strategic framework. You will now know what it means to the organisation and understand the strategic framework.
But what does it mean to you personally and how can you help in your day-to-day role? Whether you sit in a directorate, that is part of the Operational Expertise or the Enabling Expertise; the role you play in what you deliver for the IET, for how you develop new relationships and products or how you support other teams to be successful is crucial.
Equally, it’s about being sure with your team and your wider IET colleagues that the part you play aligns to our Strategic Themes or Societal Challenges. So, questioning how this aligns to the strategy is important. This will mean different things to different directorates and different roles, so we have provided some tools that can help you and your teamwork out what part you play in delivering our Strategy 2030.
Tools for helping you and your teams
Here are some tools to help you to socialise IET Strategy 2030 with your teams.
There is a Manager’s Workshop so that you can start to discuss what it means to you and your teams on a directorate and an individual level, as well as what further tools and support you need to bring this to life.
Here are some more tools to help you discuss and engage your teams and volunteers with the IET Strategy 2030.
Here are some assets to also help you discuss and engage your teams with the IET Strategy 2030 to Teams, Volunteers and Councils;
Linking your Development Objectives to IET Strategy 2030
So that we can continue to develop the conversation about IET Strategy 2030 throughout the organisation, this year we will ask every colleague to have an awareness and understanding of the strategy through a Development Objective.
This will mean different things to different colleagues and teams but it is now a good time to start thinking what you can do to raise your awareness of IET Strategy 2030.
Development Objective for Line Managers:
I can demonstrate awareness and understanding of our Strategy 2030, our plans and priorities. I have ensured that my team have a shared understanding about the strategy and the role that they play in ensuring its success.
Development Objective for Colleagues:
I can demonstrate awareness and understanding of our Strategy 2030, our plans and priorities, and how my role contributes to the success of our new strategy.
Monitoring the success of our strategy
We have created a Governance structure to make sure that we have the correct checks and balances in place and that we are heading in the direction of our Ambitions.
We have created Strategic Themes and Societal Challenge Working Groups where colleagues, from across the Operational and Enabling Expertise areas of our organisation, will come together to build, develop, discuss and collaborate on the roadmaps for short, mid and long-term plans.
Each of these Working Groups will consist of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from across all IET Offices and will be chaired by an XLT member on a rolling basis.
These Working Group Chairs will feed into the Strategic Theme Oversight Committee and the Societal Challenge Oversight Committee each Chaired and attended by Exec Team members for feedback, direction and support.
Yearly Strategic Review Cycle
Every year there will be four Strategic Review Periods planned:
April: IET Strategic Review
June: Council & Board of Trustees Joint Strategic Planning
September: Directors Planning Review
November: Board of Trustees Planning sign off
We hope you have found this Sparks document helpful. We would be very pleased to receive any feedback you may have.