University administrators believe a focus on interdisciplinary studies and innovation could be the key to improving potential international competitiveness -- a weakness explored by a recent report by Duke researchers.
According to the report, the media often inaccurately finds the United States lagging behind other countries in terms of producing engineers.
As stated in the report, "various articles in the popular media ... have stated that the United States graduates roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers annually, whereas China graduates 600,000 and India 350,000."
Ryan Ong, a research associate at Duke, said he and his colleagues suspected this number was incorrect. Ong said the researchers compiled their own statistics and found that the U.S. graduates 137,000 engineers, India graduates 139,000 and China graduates 440,000 each year.
Though the report found the discrepancy between the number of U.S. engineers and engineers abroad to be less pronounced than popularly believed, it also pointed out outsourcing of engineering skills and ideas could still be problematic.
Vivek Wadhwa, executive-in-residence of Duke's Master of Engineering Management Program, said he and his colleagues conducted interviews with companies in China and India and discovered that the next jobs to be outsourced would be in research and design. According to Wadhwa, this finding was especially troubling.
"For example," Wadhwa said, "let's say you make a dress. You can outsource manufacturing and still be competitive, but if you outsource the design of the dress there is nothing left for you to do."
James Aylor, dean of the Engineering School, said there have also been concerns at the University about competition with engineers in other countries.
"We are basically worried about our engineering workforce being outsourced," said Aylor. "What we have to do as a country is make sure we have the most innovative engineers so we are on the cutting edge."
Aylor said engineers at the University are fortunate to attend an institution with a comprehensive program.
"We encourage students to be as broad as possible, to pick up minors and majors in other areas," said Aylor. "We make sure we not only have good engineers, but complete people as well."
Kathy Thornton, associate dean of engineering graduate programs, advised students to be inventive, an effort that could serve as the best type of job security.
"What we need to be concentrating on with educating engineers in this country is encouraging them to be innovative," said Thornton. "Jobs that are outsourced are not ones that will produce innovative developments, designs and creations."
Ong said he and his colleagues discovered that 25.3 percent of engineering and technology companies in the United States had been founded, in part, by at least one immigrant. In addition, about 25 percent of patents from the United States are credited to immigrants.
"This was higher than we had originally thought," said Ong.
In order to keep the United States competitive in the engineering field, Wadhwa said engineers need greater leadership, business and management skills, as well as a better global perspective.
"Engineers need to know what is going on in the world," said Wadhwa.
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