The results from the Tomorrow’s Engineers Code 2023 check-in
Every year we ask Signatories of The Code about their work towards the 4 pledges of The Code. The check-in captures information on how The Code community are working towards meeting the pledges and what support is needed to improve its collective impact.
What did The Code achieve in 2022-23?
Overall, you said being part of The Code was a positive experience. 70% of you agree or strongly agree that being a member has improved your understanding of how your activities relate to other STEM outreach, up from 55% in 2021. And 69% say The Code has improved how you show the breadth and diversity in engineering (up from 61%). When asked how likely you are to recommend joining The Tomorrow's Engineers Code to a friend or colleague, on average you gave a score of 8 (on a scale of 0-10).
Inspiring connection
You’re working with other organisations to create joint activities, signposting to complementary programmes and really thinking about how your work fits into the bigger picture. Many of you are using Neon to understand what’s already on offer to schools and to promote your opportunities and almost of third have shared insight or resources within the community.
Driving inclusion
This year you’ve been really thinking about how to engage the schools and young people who don’t typically participate in engineering activities. You’ve also adapted your activities to be more inclusive to students from groups underrepresented in engineering and/or delivered STEM outreach specifically for these young people – with a focus on locality, socioeconomics and gender.
Showcasing engineering
You’ve done a lot to promote a compelling view of engineering and the range of opportunities it has to offer. You’ve included info on vocational and academic pathways into engineering and made the connection between STEM subjects at school and real-life engineering. You’ve also used diverse images of engineers to reinforce anyone can work in engineering.
Improving impact
You are working in different ways to improve monitoring and evaluation of your programmes and activities to develop a shared understanding of what works. You’ve designed activities with learning outcomes in mind, collected feedback on content and delivery, evaluated the impact of your outreach and used the findings to develop or improve your programmes. And you’ve been sharing your results with others.
Code Connect
You want to collaborate and Code Connect has been developed to make it easier for you to make connections and start conversations. While 75% of you are aware of Code Connect, many haven’t used it yet and weren’t aware of the filter and request to connect features.
Your plans
You’ve told us you’re keen to collaborate more and if you’re not already using Code Connect, to get connected. You also want to share your learnings and case studies with others. Over the next year, Signatory plans include increasing the number of programmes and reach, being more collaborative and embedding learnings from The Code into your work.
You say you’ll be looking to engage more with underrepresented groups, to improve targeting and make the most of Code and EngineeringUK resources. Additionally, there are plans to use more diverse case studies, support staff to volunteer in outreach and improve and innovate evaluation.
Our plans
We will continue to work with you, the Code community. We’ll help more Signatories get onto and start using Code Connect so everyone can easily see what others are doing. We will work with successful Code connectors to share their collaboration stories and showcase to others how they too can harness the power of the platform. And we’ll make sure you are aware of all the resources available, signposting to them regularly and running webinars so you can get the most out of them.