About Us

The Humanitarian Engineering Community of Practice (HECoP) will help explain the essence and boundaries of Humanitarian Engineering by capturing and updating the concepts, skills and practices that are generally accepted and known within the field. 

Membership
Membership of this online community is free and open to the public. If you haven't already joined, and would like to do so, click here, or the "sign up" button at the top of this page.

About This Community
The Humanitarian Engineering Community of Practice (HECoP) is run by the College of Leadership and Management (CLM), supported and facilitated by Engineers Australia (EA).  EA is an institution with over 100,000 members with the mission to "advance the science and practice of engineering for the benefit of the community".  

Our intent is to:
“Foster the application of professional engineering discipline to the leadership, management, design and delivery of humanitarian undertakings”.

Of course, all engineering should be humanitarian ("to promote human welfare").  Specifically, Humanitarian Engineering is understood to be the application of an engineering discipline to a specific humanitarian response across the breath of contexts and locations, from disaster response through to community and technology development, both internationally and domestically (Smith et al 2019). 

Humanitarian Engineering specifically engages disadvantaged, marginalised or vulnerable communities by actively addressing and prioritising in focussed engineering practice in those communities.  It mobilises the engineering skills of insight, perspective, focus and judgement which are particularly relevant to humanitarian practice.

The Body of Knowledge (BOK) will incorporate links to existing bodies of knowledge and resources for Humanitarian Engineering and related fields and professions, as well as a collection of case studies, practice notes and papers/articles addressing current issues in this domain. These will be complemented by webinars to explore topics of interest and encourage discussion and knowledge sharing through our discussion forums.

How you can get involved
The steering committee welcomes input and involvement from the broader community of practitioners.  Ways that you can help drive the success and value of HECoP is:

• Become a member.  Membership is free to all interested professionals and members of the public.
• Volunteer to host a webinar or podcast by emailing the HECoP Coordinator with a brief biography and synopsis of your presentation.
• Provide input via the discussion forums.
• Email relevant links to the HECoP Coordinator to upload for publications, journals, news, events, conferences, associations, research and videos etc.

HECoP Coordinator: humeng@engineersaustralia.org.au

OPERATIONS

The HECoP steering committee is a group of dedicated professionals active in various aspects of humanitarian work, who have volunteered their time to construct, govern, update and maintain the quality of the HECoP platform.

Steering Committee Members

Chair - Robert Care AM
Represent the CoP as its figurehead.  Provide governance and leadership.

Secretary – Jeremy Smith
Record minutes, organise calendars and arrange meetings.  Receive and direct correspondence. 

Operations Manager - Jeremy Smith
General oversight of CoP infrastructure, activities and operations.  Supporting process owners by facilitating the productive operation and interaction of key processes aimed at achieving the CoP’s strategic and operational goals, and stated purpose.

Community of Practice Convener – Scott Daniel
Identify stakeholder groups and key players within those groups. Engage with stakeholders to encourage CoP participation/affiliation.  Provide feedback to stakeholders relevant to their particular interests.  Convey to CoP Steering Committee stakeholder expectations.

Domain Leader – Nick Brown
Focus on the definition of the Humanitarian Engineering domain, the competencies necessary for practice in this field, and the education which should underpin those competencies.

Body of Knowledge (BoK) Management – Daniel Lambert, Gavin Blakey OAM, supported by Cris Birzer (Leadership and Management) and Jackson Jones (EA).
Determine the various avenues through which knowledge (and information and data) can be acquired for the BoK.  Establish and maintain disciplines for useful interpretation of acquired knowledge, and its easily accessible storage.  Develop channels for the deployment of knowledge thus acquired and interpreted.

Liaison Officer – Neil Greet
Clear definition of the formal relationship with EA, and relationships with other relevant institutions. Work necessary to satisfy the obligations involved in those relationships.