The Engineering Education and Research Policy of ASCE was established in 1985 to address national policy issues relating to education and research. The Committee maintains close liaison with federal agencies, other professional organizations and their policy groups, and various committees within ASCE, and reports to the Board of Direction. This paper is concerned with describing the principal activities of the Engineering Education and Research Policy Committee and describing work of the committee during the past several years. The paper describes the ASCE Key Alert Program and illustrates the use of this program for engineering education and research interests. The close relationship between the committee and various federal agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation, is highlighted. A key issue is the role of this committee as civil engineering, and ASCE, are faced with some serious and challenging education and research problems in the immediate future. The Engineering Education and Research Policy Committee should assume a major role in establishing appropriate directions for the profession.

Some problems in which the civil engineering profession may be actively involved in the 21st century are examined together with the research and educational efforts that will be needed for civil engineers to face these problems successfully. In addition some specific research topics associated with present problems and work already in progress are listed. This paper is also intended as a working document for continued discussion within the technical committees of the Engineering Mechanics Division of ASCE. As such, no attempt is made at this stage to offer solutions to some of the problems foreseen in practice and education. Long‐range and more immediate research needs or areas of opportunity that are identified are listed in alphabetical order, without implying any priorities among them. It is believed that due to the rapid changes in technology and the economic environment an effort of this kind must be a continuous process with periodic revisions and updating.

At present at least three driving forces in construction markets indicate the increasing importance of advanced technology: the technical complexity of constructed facilities is increasing, owners faced with increasing international competition are demanding more of designers and constructors, and the size, diversity, and state of technology in the U.S. construction market are making it increasingly attractive for foreign competitors. To help prepare for the changes that these forces will bring about, the present paper describes how advanced technology can bring about competitive advantage in design and construction firms. An overview of competition in the construction industry is given and strategies for technology‐based competitive advantage in design and construction are proposed. The strategies are: “not proud,” “efficiency expert,” construction R&D heresy, “work smarter,” forward technical integration, and backward technical integration. The strategies lead to conclusions concerning changes in the structure of the profession, shifts in the division of responsibility, changes in the performance of design and construction, and altered qualifications for successful careers in civil engineering.

The construction industry, which is served by civil engineers, is the nation's largest industry, with revenues exceeding $400 billion annually. It is also a highly competitive and fragmented industry, whose participants often only think of “today”: today's profits, today's methods, and today's culture. With the 21st century drawing near, the window of opportunity to advance the profession of civil engineering through research is narrowing. A national and unifying effort is needed to overcome the problem of lagging research. Many areas that can significantly impact the profession are identified. Attention must be paid to these areas in order to make significant and meaningful contributions to society and to the profession.

Inventory, condition, and performance data describing facilities and components is a primary information source supporting maintenance and rehabilitation (M and R) decisions. At present, this data, which serves as the basis of billions of M and R expenditure dollars, is incomplete, inaccessible, or nonexistent. This situation leads to costly reactive maintenance and project overruns, and prevents organizations from implementing rational M and R programs. In contrast, the recent revolution in sensors, electronics, and computers has made technology available that can rapidly collect this physical data and automatically enter it into the management database. The full exploitation of this technology has been limited by the lack of a profit motive, the need to adapt traditional management methods to the new information capabilities, and the lack of a clear‐cut rationale for technological performance specifications. These limitations can be overcome through the initiation of educational and research programs, which integrate the disciplines of physical science, electronic sensing, and facilities management. Such programs will produce researchers and practitioners with the perspective needed to address these and other complex issues in infrastructure management.

Two areas that demand major research commitments include real‐time surveying and mapping systems and geographic data bases. Future developments in these areas are vital to the computer integration of engineering processes, and the automation of construction. Global positioning and machine vision systems have already demonstrated the potential for performing real‐time surveying and mapping tasks. Some of the fundamental problems and benefits associated with geographic data bases have also been demonstrated by the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) file system being developed by the U.S. Bureau of Census. However, many complex technical problems in both areas need to be resolved. In addition, the shortage of qualified surveying engineers and problems in surveying education can be major obstacles to the implementation of these new technologies.

The 21st century is believed to offer unlimited opportunities to civil engineers together with professionals of the other disciplines with whom engineers work. Approaches to these opportunities include (1) Matching capacity to demand with staged approaches, technologies, and incremental design periods that conform to periods consistent with political time scales such as election frequencies, with correspondingly reduced costs, and with reduced accountability and liability for unforeseen consequences of a program or project; (2) basing priorities for investments in health and other environmental projects and programs on marginal rather than average benefits; (3) early identification and resolution of potential environmental conflicts, particularly in the water resources sector; and (4) postaudits of environmental and other civil engineering programs and projects.

The Urban Water Resources Research Council identifies four critical engineering issues that must be addressed in the 21st century: water supply, storm water management, combined sewer systems, and engineering education. Water supply planning must become part of an integrated water resources‐planning process that considers all sources and beneficial uses in allocating a fixed supply to an increasing demand. The interrelationship of groundwater and surface water must be recognized, with programs to replenish these resources being considered in conjunction with water supply. Storm water management must consider the quantity and quality of urban runoff. Storm water systems must be designed so that post‐development runoff approximates pre‐development runoff, and economical treatment techniques must be invented to retrofit existing drainage systems. Either we must develop cost‐effective processes to handle the widely varying ranges of flow and pollutant concentrations from combined sewer systems, or we must create separate systems as we restore infrastructure in the older cities relying on combined sewer systems. In addition to a solid engineering foundation, engineering education must provide training in communication, leadership, people management, and creativity.

The form of urban transportation in the 21st century is seen in the changes presently taking place in power and control technology and in the demands that suburban growth and urban renewal will place on existing and future transportation facilities. It is posited that extremely high levels of demand will require the merging of private and mass transportation modes into hybrid systems of individual‐ and system‐controlled vehicles employing both internal combustion and electric propulsion as appropriate. To retain a leadership role in the coming urban transportation revolution, the civil engineer will need a combination of technical and managerial skills not typically found in today's graduates or practitioners. Universities, public agencies, and private consultancies—in essence, the profession as a whole—must begin to address this need now.

Construction can be viewed as the manufacturing arm of civil engineering, since civil engineers not only provide planning, analysis, and design for new facilities, but are the dominant profession in construction engineering and management as well. Construction will thus be central to many activities of ASCE in the twenty‐first Century. Both the design and the construction parts of the profession face many hurdles to the adoption of these advanced technologies. To remain competitive advanced technologies must be incorporated into civil engineering practice. Computer‐based tools offer the clear potential to improve the efficiency of current operations and may even bring revolutionary new capabilities to civil engineers. Civil engineering also must provide the leadership to advance the profession and make it responsive to future societal needs, not just those of the past and present. Our challenge is to keep our profession as vital, stimulating, prestigious, and rewarding for future generations of civil engineers as it was for those in the past, and to make civil engineers the leaders in improving the quality of life.

Geotechnical engineering was established as a formal discipline in the 1920s, with a focus on the large projects of the latter stages of the industrial revolution. In the intervening years since the 1920s, the field has expanded beyond that of the original concepts. While the growth of the discipline has been on a positive track to date, there are issues that need consideration for the future. First, improved lines of communication are needed between practitioners and academics. Second, many of the areas which would appear ripe for major development call for skills that are not being imparted to advanced students. Third, there is a need for an organized effort to influence the funding agencies to support needed research. Finally, there is not enough cooperation of groups involved in research, and too much duplication of specialized facilities in the research community. As civil engineers face these issues, geotechnical practicioners have problems with liability and insurance costs, drawing their attention away from development. The survival of a vigorous geotechnical profession into the 21st century will require a concerted effort of all parties to address our problems. Fortunately, the problems we face are solvable so long as care is taken in developing a sound approach to them.

A state‐of‐the‐art background including the role of ASCE over the past 25 years is presented. During this time fiber‐reinforced plastics (FRP) have been used effectively in civil engineering facilities such as pipes, water treatment plants, and structures exposed to highly corrosive environments. Interest in broader applications of structural plastics throughout the construction industry has grown within the past decade. New or extended areas of research needed to provide civil engineers with the property data and structural behavioral information for structural plastics are discussed. Topics include infrastructure rehabilitation, characterization of composite materials, design guides for future materials systems, and adaptation of construction practice. Desired changes in governmental regulations and policies are offered and needed modifications to national educational programs are analyzed.

Presented in chronological order is a brief overview of some anticipated notable achievements in the 21st century regarding buildings and bridges constructed around the world. Numerous large scale structures are expected in environments now thought of as hostile, such as underwater, in desert and arctic regions, and, of course, in outer space. Bridges will continue to traverse obstacles, and in many cases will be unusual in form, materials, and length.

Since the earliest times, civil engineers have been building the infrastructure which has supported the advances known as called civilization. The exploration and development of space offers the broadly and well‐trained civil engineer of today and tomorrow career opportunities unparalleled since the exploration and settlement of the West. This paper attempts to point out, by citing a few examples, how the science, technology, and practice of civil engineering will be needed by mankind as the space frontier is pioneered. Civil engineering is a broad and diverse field of practice. It ranges from the surveying of new territory to the design and construction of buildings, deeply rooted in the soils of this Earth, that reach toward the stars. Within this sweep of activities lies the many subdisciplines of civil engineering that will be useful and needed in building bases on other planets and stations in space.

Construction of large‐scale structures is remarkable in Japan, though it is still much behind the U.S. Computer use and program review systems have been developed, including personal computers. The recent increase of structural variety requires thorough consideration of construction procedures in the design stage. Construction machinery has revealed remarkable improvement. The level of intelligence in construction industry was greatly improved recently, but fundamental criteria of structural failure is not yet understood. Design has become more complicated, but wider consideration will be required in conjunction with social problems.

This paper considers the supply and demand for graduates in civil engineering. It is written from the British viewpoint for statistics and trends facing Britain and Europe. The writer, however, has worked for a number of years in the United States, and the points made in the paper are equally valid in that country. The supply of young men and women of an appropriate age will fall until the turn of the century. This trend is coincident with a disillusionment in engineering and technology. The paper considers these problems and offers suggestions on how to make the profession attractive, and at the same time the paper considers future concerns of the civil engineer in relation to third world countries.

This paper discusses the problem of cities organizing to prepare for earthquakes. Design methods to provide buildings with greater resistance are described. Civil engineering recommendations included in the Mexico City Construction Code for seismic zones are listed. Effective methods of using the “traction test” are outlined.