IStructE · Alternative routes

The Research and Development route

For engineers whose professional practice is research or development rather than project delivery.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Employers

The Core Objectives assume a working engineer. For engineers whose work is research or development, the Institution provides a route that recognises that practice.

The problem it solves

Read the ten Core Objectives with a researcher in mind and the difficulty is obvious. Several assume project delivery: concept creation and design, construction, commercial and legal matters, and management of a resource on a job.

An engineer three years into a doctorate on the fatigue behaviour of welded connections may have deep, genuinely advanced competence in analysis, materials and professional standards, and little to show against construction or commercial awareness — not because they are weak, but because their practice does not contain those activities in the form the objectives describe.

The Research and Development route exists so that this engineer is assessed on the practice they actually have.

What it does not change

It is worth being precise, because the same misunderstanding attaches here as to the Technical Report Route.

It does not remove the Professional Review. It does not lower the standards. It does not exempt anyone from demonstrating competence. It is a recognition that competence in a research or development career shows up in different evidence, and that the evidence should be judged on its own terms rather than against a project-delivery template.

Who it tends to suit

Engineers in academic research whose output is publication, teaching and supervised investigation.
Engineers in industrial research and development — testing, product development, novel systems, computational methods.
Engineers in specialist analysis or software roles whose work informs design without producing designs.
Engineers in standards, code drafting and technical committee work.

Evidence in a research career

The general principle from the evidence pages holds: what matters is what you did, at what level of responsibility, against a specific objective. What changes is where that evidence lives.

Professional standards — engagement with the Institution, technical committees, peer review, CPD, and the limits of your competence in a specialism.
Communication — papers, conference presentations, teaching, technical reports, and translating findings for a non-specialist audience. This is often a researcher's strongest objective.
Analysis and sizing — usually strong, and frequently at a level beyond what a delivery engineer would show.
Materials — often exceptionally strong where the research is materials-based.
Sustainability — the research question itself may sit here.
Construction, management, commercial — the ones needing deliberate thought. Research is funded, programmed, resourced and governed; grant management, supervision of researchers, laboratory safety, procurement of testing and industrial collaboration are all genuine evidence, and researchers routinely undersell them.

That last point is the practical advice this page can offer: a researcher's weakest-looking objectives are usually evidenced somewhere in how the research was run, rather than in the research itself.

Confirm the route with the Institution first

Worth establishing early

Does IStructE agree that my practice fits this route?
It is the Institution's determination, not a self-assessment, and it changes what evidence you should be collecting from now on.
Which grade am I seeking, and are the objectives the same?
The minimum standards are held per grade, and one objective differs between Incorporated-Member and Chartered Member.
Who can act as my mentor, given where I work?
The individually managed route needs a personal mentor; in a university or laboratory the right person may sit outside your immediate group.
How will the examination work for me?
The examination assesses scheme design under time pressure, which is furthest from a research engineer's daily practice and needs the most deliberate preparation.

Where a research career's evidence tends to sit

Queensferry's own mapping, offered as a starting point for a gap analysis. It is not an IStructE statement, and it does not change what any objective requires.
Core Objective	Where the evidence usually is
1 Professional standards	Institution engagement, technical committees, peer review, CPD, the limits of a specialism
2 Communication	Papers, conference presentations, teaching, technical reports — often the strongest objective
4 Analysis and sizing	Usually strong, and frequently beyond what delivery work would show
5 Materials	Exceptionally strong where the research is materials-based
6 Sustainability	Often the research question itself
7 Construction	Laboratory work, test rig construction, industrial collaboration, site trials
9 Management	Grant management, supervising researchers, programme and resource, laboratory safety
10 Commercial and legal	Funding bids, procurement of testing, intellectual property, collaboration agreements

Queensferry's own mapping, offered as a starting point for a gap analysis. It is not an IStructE statement, and it does not change what any objective requires.

Evidencing a research career

Worth doing

Claim the management and commercial work involved in running research
Treat laboratory safety as genuine health, safety and risk evidence
Use teaching and publication as communication evidence
Confirm with IStructE that this route applies to you, in writing
Plan deliberately for the examination, which is furthest from research practice

Avoid

Assume the objectives are waived
Undersell grant, supervision and procurement responsibility
Leave construction and commercial objectives unevidenced without trying
Plan around requirements you have not had confirmed
Expect the route to change the standards — it changes where the evidence comes from