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Carry on — Learning!
Carry on --
learning!
In every industrial country, it is repeatedly found that skills acquired, eventually become obsolete. Whole sectors of production decline, then fade into history. There is little doubt that the rate of technical change is increasing, with important consequences for the individual scientist or engineer. It has been estimated that what is first learnt at college or university has a half-life of only one decade. How then, does one keep in touch? Neither to the people in mid-career who have acquired valuable 'know-how' and managerial skills - nor to the organizations which employ them - is a mass return to full-time study a practical solution. A more appropriate response is the short, specialized course, generally at postgraduate level, which transfers fresh information and competence back to the sponsor, via a hand-picked member of his own staff. From the point of view of the teacher also, the situation is not static. It is precisely in the newer technologies such as composites, where the change is most rapid, that the need to up-date is greatest. These requirements were much in mind when the Cambridge programme was begun in 1978. Each year, during the long vacation, a group of leading industrialists and academics in the fibre-composites field runs an integrated four-day course, for the benefit of some 50 or so professional people from widely different technical backgrounds. The course is an intensive one, agreeably softened by being held at Peterhouse, the oldest of the 35 colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. In September 1982, in response to consumer demand, an applied and industrial element was added. The course was backed, on the fifth day, by an Extension Seminar with the topical theme of Inter-relationships between Design and Fabrication Tech-
nology of Fibre Composites. The invited professionals spoke with considerable authority; and we have much pleasure in presenting their contributions to a wider audience through this special issue of Composites.
Peter W. R.Beaumont (Course Director) Leslie NoPhillips OBE (Seminar Chairman)
86
COMPOSITES . APRI L 1983
learning!
In every industrial country, it is repeatedly found that skills acquired, eventually become obsolete. Whole sectors of production decline, then fade into history. There is little doubt that the rate of technical change is increasing, with important consequences for the individual scientist or engineer. It has been estimated that what is first learnt at college or university has a half-life of only one decade. How then, does one keep in touch? Neither to the people in mid-career who have acquired valuable 'know-how' and managerial skills - nor to the organizations which employ them - is a mass return to full-time study a practical solution. A more appropriate response is the short, specialized course, generally at postgraduate level, which transfers fresh information and competence back to the sponsor, via a hand-picked member of his own staff. From the point of view of the teacher also, the situation is not static. It is precisely in the newer technologies such as composites, where the change is most rapid, that the need to up-date is greatest. These requirements were much in mind when the Cambridge programme was begun in 1978. Each year, during the long vacation, a group of leading industrialists and academics in the fibre-composites field runs an integrated four-day course, for the benefit of some 50 or so professional people from widely different technical backgrounds. The course is an intensive one, agreeably softened by being held at Peterhouse, the oldest of the 35 colleges that make up the University of Cambridge. In September 1982, in response to consumer demand, an applied and industrial element was added. The course was backed, on the fifth day, by an Extension Seminar with the topical theme of Inter-relationships between Design and Fabrication Tech-
nology of Fibre Composites. The invited professionals spoke with considerable authority; and we have much pleasure in presenting their contributions to a wider audience through this special issue of Composites.
Peter W. R.Beaumont (Course Director) Leslie NoPhillips OBE (Seminar Chairman)
86
COMPOSITES . APRI L 1983