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History of the Academy
1986–1991: Accolades and education
The Fellowship was
established to honour the contribution to
engineering excellence of British engineers.
In 1986 it also began to elect Foreign
Members and Honorary Fellows, whilst the
Duke of Kent was made a Royal Fellow. When
Sir Denis Rooke CBE FRS FREng replaced Lord
Caldecote as President in 1986 he set out to
develop The Fellowship's influence further.
In 1987 the
President's Medal, to recognise
the contributions of non-engineers to the
promotion of engineering excellence, was
first awarded. Sir Denis also proposed the
establishment of a Prince Philip Medal, in
honour of the Senior Fellow's contribution.
This was to be 'awarded periodically to an
engineer of any nationality who has made an
exceptional contribution to engineering as a
whole, through practice, management or
education'. The first recipient was Sir
Frank Whittle OM KBE CB FREng FRS in 1991.
The new President was no less anxious to
seek increases in Grant-in-Aid and in
industrial funding. After the Wolfson
industrial research fellowships ended in
1985, for instance, he was instrumental in
establishing a new programme of
senior
research fellowships and chairs, largely
funded by industry, the first of which, with
support from British Gas, was set up at
Cambridge in September 1986.
One major
concern had always been design education. A
working party in 1983 recommended the
setting up of Chairs in the Principles of
Engineering Design as a way of ensuring the
incorporation of design teaching across
engineering disciplines. A further report in
1985 then stressed the need to relate design
teaching to industrial practice. This led,
in 1989, to the appointment of eight senior
engineers from industry as the first
Visiting Professors in the Principles of
Engineering Design.
Meanwhile another
inquiry, into education and training
requirements for the 21st century, published
in 1989, stressed that if engineers were to
progress within firms they would also need a
working knowledge of finance and economics,
good communication skills and, increasingly,
foreign languages. These recommendations
reflected long-standing Fellowship concerns.
In 1986 it had already introduced
postgraduate travel grants, followed in 1988
by the Scheme for West European Engineering
Travel, to broaden undergraduates' horizons
and language skills through industrial
placements or research projects in other
European countries. A similar scheme was
funded by the French Embassy from 1989 to
1996.
Management and linguistic skills are
clearly important if British engineers are
to be as effective as possible in industry.
The Fellowship was able to begin to address
this field of management skills thanks to
the vision of David Sainsbury who approached
the President in 1986 to develop a scheme to
enable outstanding young engineering
graduates to undertake MBA courses at
European business schools.
This was the
start of a series of educational programmes
from sixth form to postgraduate level, the
Engineering Education Continuum, launched in
1990, with funding from the
Gatsby
Charitable Foundation and additional support
from industry and training bodies. This
encourages links between industry and
schools and universities, enthuses students
with the challenges presented by
engineering, and enables them to develop
their engineering skills and management
capabilities. It has four elements. The
schools programme involves teamwork by lower
sixth formers with companies on industrial
projects. The year in industry provides
pre-undergraduates with industrial
placements. The undergraduate programme
funds industrial tours for students and
bursaries for travel and for leadership and
team-building courses. The postgraduate
phase consists of an expanded MBA programme.
There were other new initiatives. In 1986
The Fellowship became Patron of the Marine
Technology Directorate upon its
privatisation by SERC and its establishment
as a non-profit company to promote research
in marine technology. In 1988 a working
party was set up on engineering in medicine.
Its report, published in 1990, made
important recommendations on the development
of, and education and training for, medical
engineering. Another initiative was designed
to assist engineers to discharge their
responsibility, not just for good technology
but for safe technology. Draft guidelines
for engineers on procedures for identifying
and handling potentially hazardous
situations were presented at a successful
conference on 'Warnings of Preventable
Disasters' in 1990.
One of The Fellowship's
principal objectives meanwhile remained the
encouragement of excellence in manufacturing
engineering. In 1987 it joined the
Engineering Manufacturing Forum, which was
set up in 1985 by the Mechanical, Electrical
and Production Engineering Institutions to
promote the importance of manufacturing,
principally by means of prestige lectures.
The Fellowship was also concerned to promote
better utilisation of advanced technology in
industry. However, it was realised that
technology had to be integrated into overall
company strategy, from product development,
through training and investment, to
marketing. The result was The Fellowship's
Management of Technology Initiative, to
identify – from examples of successful
management of innovation – lessons which
might be learnt by other companies. A major
report on this theme was published in 1991.
Planning continued for a high rate of growth
in The Fellowship's activities, partly
through increasing funding and partly
through enlarging The Fellowship's own
resources. No less important was the
securing of long-term suitable
accommodation. The Fellowship had long been
aware that its premises in Little Smith
Street, although conveniently close to
Westminster and Whitehall, did not offer
satisfactory rooms for meetings. It was
therefore decided in early 1989 to establish
a major Appeal for funds: to industry and
commerce for project work and the MacRobert
Award, and to Fellows for a building fund.
The appeal was launched in June 1990 with a
reception at Buckingham Palace and proved
extremely successful, raising over
£4,500,000 by mid 1996.
One of the first
beneficiaries of the fundraising was the new
Fellowship of Engineering
MacRobert Award
Trust established in 1990 by a £1,000,000
donation – half from the MacRobert Trust and
half directly from The Fellowship. This
remains the UK's premier annual award for
innovation in engineering and consists of a
gold medal and a £50,000 prize.
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