Postgraduate Course: Fire Safety, Engineering & Society (MSc) (PGEE11158)

Course Outline
School	School of Engineering	College	College of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	10	ECTS Credits	5
Summary	Although engineering provides rigorous tools for addressing complex societal goals, there is little formal teaching with regard to the way these goals are understood. This course fills this gap by providing students with a range of conceptual tools (illustrated with examples from many fields of engineering and technological development) geared towards understanding the ways that social factors influence engineering (especially fire safety engineering) practice. In addition, the understandable tendency in engineering to quantification and calculation can obscure the central roles of choice and judgement in engineering practice. This course will therefore also address the ways that the knowledge claims used in engineering are socially constructed, and why this matters for engineering outcomes.
Course description	The teaching of engineering at the UoE, as elsewhere, tends to emphasise the application of scientific principles at the expense of broader social aspects of engineering knowledge and practice. Although engineering provides rigorous tools for addressing complex societal goals, there is little formal teaching with regard to the way these goals are understood. This course will fill this gap by providing students with a range of conceptual tools (illustrated with examples from many fields of engineering and technological development) geared towards understanding the ways that social factors influence engineering (especially fire safety engineering) practice. In addition, the understandable tendency in engineering to quantification and calculation can obscure the central roles of choice and judgement in engineering practice. This course will therefore also address the ways that the knowledge claims used in engineering are socially constructed and organisationally mediated, and why this matters for engineering outcomes. The course has two main aims. First, to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the social context of fire safety engineering with regard to issues such as the socioeconomic factors that contribute to fire risk and its understanding and the history and rationale of regulatory practices. Second, to stimulate the students to interrogate and debate taken-for-granted aspects of engineering practice, and thus to be more reflexive about the basis of the claims generated and used in fire safety engineering. The course will be structured as follows: 1. Introduction. Set out broad principles and methods of sociology of knowledge approach and why it is central to understanding both the effects of fire, and fire safety science and engineering practice. 2. History of major disasters and effects on regulation and practice. 3. Epidemiology and statistics. Socioeconomic causes of fire outcomes. 4. Development of regulation in 20th century. Emergence of life safety (vs property) and role of public and private institutions. 5. Testing. Standard fire testing and its implications for knowledge and practice. 6. Evidence and Governance: Sprinklers and smoke alarms 7. Limits of building control. Why people, practice, and social organisation matter. Example of fire in informal settlements. 8. Performance Based Design. The significance of 'expertise asymmetry' in regulation, and the role of professionalisation. 9. Judgment and Risk. Quantification, optimisation, and spurious precision. 10. Guest lecture. 11. Summing up. Heterogeneous Engineering. The role of politics and organisations.

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to: Develop a critical understanding of the principal theories and concepts used to understand the way that engineering practice interacts with broader societal factors; Engage critically with relevant literature on risk and regulation; Develop the ability to use one of the frameworks/conceptual approaches to analyse a specific case study; Assess competing claims and critically review the methods used to create fire safety knowledge; Demonstrate ability to convey the above to an informed audience.