Abstract
The world is going through some profound changes: automation and general improvement of productivity is resulting in the abundance of industrial products, the domination of the West in global economy and politics is challenged by the rise of the BRICS economies, climate change is requiring a reconsideration of the energy system, particularly in Europe demographic changes are resulting in an ageing society, and finally, the electronic communication revolution is changing the ways in which elements in a society are held together influencing all aspects of economy, research, learning, living, media etc. Civil engineers and their forerunners have been shaping the infrastructure of societies for millennia. This paper explores how the listed trends will affect the civil engineering work and where civil engineers will be able to contribute. While the relative contribution of the construction industry to the jobs creation and economic growth will continue to decline, there are substantial opportunities in comparison with some other engineering industries, in particular in the area of climate change and globalization. There are some lessons; in particular with earthquake engineering – the notion of resilience – then can be borrowed by economics and finance.
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Acknowledgement
The author has been the Secretary General of the Reflection Group on the Future of Europe that was given the task by the European Council to look into the issues that the Union may be facing the next twenty years and how it could respond to it. First part of this paper presents author’s personal views and thoughts which may or may not overlap with the upcoming report of the Reflection Group.
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Turk, Ž. (2014). Global Challenges and the Role of Civil Engineering. In: Fischinger, M. (eds) Performance-Based Seismic Engineering: Vision for an Earthquake Resilient Society. Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8875-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8875-5_4
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