The Australian engineering profession has well established standards for competency and ethics, but has lacked the necessary third element, a definition of the standard of performance that engineering professionals should expect of themselves and each other. This issue has been addressed in the Professional Performance Innovation and Risk (PPIR^TM) project undertaken by the Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering, which considered the role of the engineering professional and the performance, innovation and risk management aspects of that role; the expectations of the community and clients; the contemporary commercial and professional realities impacting on the work of the engineering professional; the complexities of law and liability; engineering risk and responsible risk-taking; and the relationships between professional performance, innovation and risk.

The work by the Warren Centre resulted in the publication, at the end of 2009, of the Report “Professional Performance, Innovation and Risk in Australian Engineering Practice”, including the PPIR Protocol^TM , which defines the expected performance for engineering professionals.

This paper addresses the particular relevance of the PPIR Strategy for addressing complex technical and project risks, as well as the demands for innovation, in Australia’s process industries. The paper also presents the current project for implementation of PPIR, under the title Engineering Professional Practice (EPP). The key objectives of this phase are to disseminate the PPIR Report, provide education and training and have the engineering industry and profession adopt the Protocol. EPP project teams are now engaging with the Australian engineering industry to implement the PPIR strategy.