On March 4, the “World Engineering Day” was held for the second time in history. This year, the main theme was “Engineering for a Healthy Planet”, with a spotlight on the contribution of engineering to the world’s current issues, especially in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic. The aim is also to raise public awareness of the important role of engineering in improving human lives and achieving sustainable development.

In order to welcome the “World Engineering Day”, Prof. Dr. GONG Ke, the President of World Federation of Engineering Organizations, the former President of Nankai University, made a speech inviting engineers from all around the world to celebrate their holiday.

For the 4^th of March, UNESCO opted for an online celebration of the “World Engineering Day 2021”. Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, and Xiaohong Li, Dean of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, after delivering their speeches, officially launched a report entitled “Engineering for Sustainable Development”. The event included a brief introduction of the report and an online discussion with young engineers from all over the world. The celebration was held from 1:00 to 2:30 pm CET (8:00-9:30 pm Beijing time) and was broadcasted live in English, French and Chinese.

That of March 4 is the second engineering report and it was released a decade after the first UNESCO engineering report. The publication comes at a critical stage of the advancement of the 2030 Global Sustainable Development Agenda, as well as in a scenario of new global challenges such as climate change and Covid-19 sweeping the world. The report describes the crucial role of engineering in achieving sustainable development and points out the need to enhance engineering capacity, improve engineering education, and strengthen engineering innovation for sustainable development. The report also emphasizes that engineering serves inclusive and diverse development and provides opportunities for women and youth to discover and participate in engineering. Furthermore, it analyzes engineering trends in major global regions under the 4th Industrial Revolution and encourages the global engineering community to work together in order to face challenges and accelerate sustainable development. The report was drafted with the support of international engineering organizations, such as the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the World Federation of Engineering Organizations. The English and Chinese versions of the report, as well as the English, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Arabic versions of the detailed summary were released simultaneously.

The Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology and other government agencies, engineering organizations, universities and research institutions from more than 10 countries and regions have actively participated at the celebration of the “World Engineering Day 2021”. More than 50 global events have been released on https://worldengineeringday.net. These activities, including engineering for poverty eradication, engineering for climate change, engineering education, engineering capacity building, poverty reduction, women condition, diversity and inclusion, climate change, engineering innovation, cooperation and partnership and other important topics, attracted a wide range of participants from the global engineering community, academic and social organizations. The above-mentioned activities will definitely strengthen global engineering cooperation, promote the diversified development of engineering itself and help to build the engineering capacity.

In 2018, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), in commemoration of its 50th anniversary, initiated the World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development. The initiative was jointly supported by more than 80 international engineering organizations, including the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, and it was formally proposed to the Executive Committee of UNESCO by more than 40 countries, including China. In November 2019, the 40th UNESCO General Conference adopted a resolution to officially proclaim March 4 as the World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development.

(Reported by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, Translated by Yuchen Shi, Edited by Davide Francolino and JianjingYun)