Camean, J. F. (2020, June), Engineering R & D  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34556

\bibitem{asee_peer_34556}
  Camean, J. F. (2020, June), \emph{Engineering R \& D}
  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line .
  10.18260/1-2--34556

Joseph F. Camean P.E..  "Engineering R & D".  2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line , 2020, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2020.  https://peer.asee.org/34556 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_34556}
  Joseph F. Camean P.E..
  "Engineering R \& D".
  \emph{2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line , 2020, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2020.
  https://peer.asee.org/34556 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_34556
author = "Joseph F. Camean P.E."
title = "Engineering R \& D"
booktitle = "2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access"
year = "2020"
month = "June"
address = "Virtual On line "
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/34556}
number = {10.18260/1-2--34556}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering is the application of science. Scientists conduct academic interrogations and analysis of nature. Engineers bring scientist’s discoveries into reality as structures, machinery and devices.  American engineering education has blurred the roles of scientists and engineers.  Engineering research too often culminates in thesis and research papers but no physical manifestation of the science.  Research and development is mostly conducted with a capital “R”, and a lower case “d”; research institutions go wanting for the motivation and skills for true R&D to occur.  Too much of our industrial, infrastructure, transportation and military components must be imported. Domestic development and production capability is being forfeited on account of engineering research culminating as no more than paper.  Many of today’s programs disdain the technical side of engineering, proclaiming curricula as assuredly not a technology program, instead favoring more extensive focus on derivation and theoretical work with expected continuity into graduate level research.  Practicing engineers are excluded from academic programs, most never acquiring the “driver’s license” PhD terminal degree essential to be a Principal Investigator.  Students who have the talent and drive to invent and create real things often disconnect from academic learning, some notable ones being Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen, but also a majority of practicing engineers who see no value in graduate study.  Practitioners must be welcomed back into academic communities, as the exclusive focus on academic research has resulted in little to no advocacy for development funding.  Government funded research has become a poison pill to development, with 99.5% apportioned to research (academic pure science), but only 0.5% to development (application oriented translational research).  Practicing engineers have an acute awareness of what is commercially practical as to materials, manufacturing processes, and how to employ what is available to be able to create what was unavailable, compounded and driven by an awareness of marketplace wants and needs. We urgently need to bring practicing engineers back into our engineering schools, respecting the most accomplished ones as “Professors of the Practice of Engineering”. Only then can R&d rightfully be R&D.

Joseph F. Camean, P.E., is an Engineering Lecturer at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy; the above views are his independent opinions and not to be interpreted to represent positons of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

AU  - Joseph F. Camean P.E.
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering R & D
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/34556
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--34556
ER  -