IT'S ALL change when it comes to education and courses in the built environment. And not a moment too soon.

“There's still a frustrating lack of engagement between the professions,” says Tom Randall, a sustainable design engineer at the engineering consultancy Fulcrum. “If you're going to solve problems you need to understand the bigger picture and not just default to the stereotypes.”

What are the stereotypes? “You know ...” he says. “Architects wanting to do something flowery, engineers getting anal about numbers and developers just being after a quick buck.”

Randall is doing his bit to counter these perceptions. In his spare time he is a director of Sponge, a networking group for built-environment professionals with an interest in sustainable development.

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Membership is open to architects, engineers, planners and developers and it stands at more than 3,000. “You meet some thoroughly decent, like-minded, interesting people [whom] you can learn from,” he says.

The need for such groups to perform an educational role may soon be over, however, as academia begins to address the need for cross-functional knowledge.

Janet Askew is the head of planning and architecture at the University of the West of England (UWE). She says that UWE's approach is multidisciplinary. “To create sustainable communities, you need all these different professions coming together. It doesn't just involve built environment; it's also health, education and transport.

“We marry subjects together - such as planning and architecture. At the end of four years, [students] can become planners, or study longer to become architects. Having this kind of background means that they will bring something extra to both roles.”

In the not-too-distant future, undergraduates should start their degrees with a much greater understanding too. From September, schools and colleges will start to teach the construction and built environment (C&BE) diploma. It will teach students about architecture, civil engineering, building, the regulatory framework and design processes. The diploma will be the equivalent of five GCSEs at the foundation level and three-and-a-half A levels at the advanced level.

Nearly 4,000 pupils across England are set to start the course this year. It's a move that has been welcomed by industry. Chris Simpson, a training manager at Wates, a construction firm, says: “It can only serve to improve perceptions and ensure a larger, better-prepared pool of recruits.”

The clout of employers in shaping courses is showing in other areas. Phil Banfill, professor of construction materials at the School of the Built Environment at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, says that distance learning is becoming more popular. “When the economy is flat, companies are not as prepared to let their employees go off for a year; they want them to work while they're learning,” he says.

Ben Croxford, the course director of the MSc in environmental design and engineering at University College London, is seeing the same trend. “Part-time courses can take two years if you study one day a week. It seems a big commitment these days because things change so quickly in the industry. People aren't going to be in the same place in two years' time,” he says.

His answer is to offer a module for half a day a week for a single term. “I think it might be attractive to companies. We're planning one in social sustainability from January. If people take that one module and like it, it could help them to get an MSc in the future.”

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