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Unit of study_
CIVL9310: Humanitarian Engineering
2025 unit information
Humanitarian Engineering is the application of Engineering design and organisation to improve quality of life, in circumstances where severe conditions of life are preventing the community from achieving those outcomes themselves. It can be anything from large scale infrastructure which benefits provinces to small scale innovations which benefit single families. It can be regarded as developmental aid or as disaster relief. In this unit students will study the world humanitarian sphere and its major and minor players. Students will be expected to critically analyse many of the notions which underpin humanitarian aid by use of various case studies and with reference to scholarly research. The subject will include both historical and contemporary study of engineering application in developmental aid delivered through governments, organisations and individuals. Various humanitarian theories will be studied and applied to specific cases, as well as methods of measuring success. This unit will be first offered in 2017. As well as being a requirement for the Humanitarian major, it is also available to all Civil students as a 3rd year Civil elective and to students from other disciplines as a free elective.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Engineering
| Study level | Postgraduate |
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| Academic unit | Civil Engineering |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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None |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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None |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. Explain the professional roles and ethical considerations of engineers working in the context of humanitarian engineering (developing countries, disasters and remote areas)
- LO2. Work in a small team with different engineering disciplines to solve an engineering challenge while displaying effective team membership and team leadership.
- LO3. Use analytical and evaluation skills to present the theoretical and practical considerations for project success and failure in humanitarian engineering.
- LO4. Explain how engineers contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
- LO5. Understanding the scope, principles, norms, accountabilities and bounds of contemporary humanitarian engineering practice
- LO6. Application of established humanitarian engineering methods to solve engineering problems in developing countries, post disaster and first nations communities
- LO7. Develop oral presentation and written skills to professionally and accurately communicate humanitarian engineering principles
Unit availability
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The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.
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