The world is changing. And so is engineering.

In the past few years, the nature of engineering—as well as its research agenda—has been changing, especially in response to the many crises that haunt our present-day world.

For example, several years ago, a trio of specialists interviewed approximately fifty top scientists and engineers worldwide. The specialists were Rutger van Santen, a computational catalytic chemist; Djan Khoe, an electro-optical communications professor; and Bram Vermeer, a physicist and science journalist. The interviewers inquired about the scientists’ and engineers’ research priorities for the next twenty years. The answers revealed the belief that cutting-edge technology should address society's major challenges: climate change and energy crises; the threatened breakdown of unsustainable mobility, health, urban, and financial systems; collective and individual security threats such as terrorism and online identity theft, for example.

The scientists argued that technology is a tremendously powerful force that is key to solving these challenges. They reasoned that many of these challenges are deeply technological in nature; modern technology in some way caused or enabled these challenges, and technology has certainly intensified the impact of these challenges. The researchers observed: “Generations of engineers have steadily woven an international web of industries, communications, and markets that has resulted in planetary interdependence … We will now survive together or quite possibly perish together.” Technology is implicated in our current crises; technology should therefore be part of the solution, they argued. Accordingly, the scientists and engineers interviewed asked for breakthroughs in these engineering domains: sustainable energy and materials, smart electronics, smart logistics, urban planning, personalized medicine, and cryptography, among others. “We have some serious work to do.”

Today, this idea has become commonplace. Humanity faces great challenges, and turns to engineers to solve them. And engineers have answered. For instance, some of the most prominent engineering organizations in the world—including the US National Academy of Engineering, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Chinese Academy of Engineering— co-organized several Global Grand Challenges Summits, such as those in London in 2013 and in Beijing in 2015. These