On Tuesday 1 December, the Academy hosted The Engineering Review of the Year, recognising the impact of engineers, including some of our 2020 award winners, and reflecting on the key stories of the last 11 months from an engineering perspective.
Chaired by TV presenter, journalist and broadcaster Fiona Bruce, the panel discussed the significant role engineering has played in addressing some of the many challenges of 2020, and how engineers have helped to keep society going and shape new technologies.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE
Hayaatun is CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. She co-chairs with the Science Minister the government’s Business Innovation Forum and co-chaired with Sir Lewis Hamilton his Commission on improving Black representation in motorsport. She is a trustee of various charities, member of the government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council and Digital Skills Council and NXD at construction company Laing O’Rourke. She has been named as one of the ‘Inspiring 50’ women in tech in Europe and one of the most influential women in both UK engineering and UK tech. She has a Masters in Biochemistry (MBiochem) from Oxford and a PhD from Cancer Research UK/UCL. She is a Fellow of the IET, Honorary Professor at UCL and Honorary Fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford. She has received honorary doctorates from UCL, Imperial College London, Newcastle, Brunel, Huddersfield and Southampton, as well as a Science Suffrage Award and the Engineering Professor’s Council President’s Medal. She was a finalist for the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award and was made a CBE for services to International Engineering in 2019. Prior to her current roles, she was Deputy CEO at the Academy and served as Committee Specialist and later Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee.
Professor Mark Miodownik MBE FREng
Yewande Akinola MBE HonFREng
Sarah Sands
A tumultuous year: the COVID-19 pandemic
Yewande Akinola MBE explains how rapid digitisation has helped the construction industry adapt and keep working during the pandemic.
The year’s biggest and most unavoidable story has been the pandemic, which has so far claimed more than 1 million lives and reached almost every country in the world. Engineers have responded to the pandemic in a myriad of ways, contributing to the global response and working at scale and at pace. The panel discussed how engineers have really risen to the challenge of innovating during the pandemic, with InnovateUK receiving a record-breaking 8,600 applications to its Fast Start Competition. Engineers have also played a vital role in keeping infrastructure running despite wild swings in demand, with the panel discussing how it should not be taken for granted that energy networks have kept running throughout the pandemic.
Professor Mark Miodownik MBE FREng says we need to appreciate the fantastic behind-the-scenes work of telecom engineers this year.
We highlighted some of the ways engineers have helped society address the challenges posed by the pandemic through our live Innovation in a Crisis events series earlier this year. In August, we announced 19 winners of our inaugural President’s Special Awards for Pandemic Service.
As the pandemic has dominated headlines, engineering’s role in medicine and health care has become much more visible. Engineers’ ongoing work on medical technologies will result in new ways of detecting, monitoring and treating a wide range of conditions in the future, improving human health for years to come.
Several winners of this year’s RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year awards, supported by the Worshipful Company of Engineers, are working on technologies with medical applications, including Sorin Popa, the overall winner and recipient of the Sir George Macfarlane Medal.
Find out more about the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year award winners.
Communication and connections: an acceleration of digitisation
As many companies and their employees were forced to embrace remote working and take processes and experiences online, 2020 was a year that saw accelerated digitisation. Engineers worked behind the scenes to help companies adapt and technological innovations helped us to communicate and connect. The panel explored the role of technology in an era when conspiracy theories can spread so quickly online, and discussed how some of the year's stories had reinforced the importance of digital literacy. As personal data is collected from everything from online shopping to healthcare records, the panel also interrogated the balance between personal privacy and essential and helpful data being collected.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE says the increased discussion around the value of data this year can help us make more informed choices in future.
Ahead of the Engineering Review of the Year, one of the Academy's Silver Medal winners, Jamie Shotton, spoke to broadcaster and interviewer, Sarah Sands, about his work to transform communication through virtual 3D telepresence.
Read more about the Academy's Silver Medal winners.
Engineering Net Zero: climate and sustainability
Professor Mark Miodownik MBE FREng says the food industry is ripe for innovation to help lower carbon emissions.
Climate change remains one of our biggest global challenges, even as we battle COVID-19. In January 2020, the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) began a programme of work to explore, inform, and advise policymakers on some of the hardest cross-cutting challenges and the opportunities that need to be addressed. In the midst of the pandemic crisis in November, the NEPC published a paper setting out five foundations accompanied by actions for government, industry and the engineering profession to help enable positive change, and set the UK on a decisive pathway to net zero territorial emissions.
Engineers continue to innovate in order to improve sustainability, and the panel noted companies increasingly committing to go carbon neutral, with Mott MacDonald being the first engineering, management and development consultancy to be certified as carbon neutral. In 2020, all three finalists for our most prestigious prize for engineering innovation, the MacRobert Award, were big engineering firms innovating to help reduce carbon emissions. In July, JCB was announced as the overall winner for developing and manufacturing the world’s first volume-produced fully electric digger, with zero exhaust emissions, improved productivity, and no emissions at point of use inside buildings.
The next generation: skills and diversity
Engineering has faced a persistent and well documented skills and diversity shortfall in the UK, and the Engineering Year in Review panel discussed some of the actions we are taking (such as our Graduate Engineering Engagement Programme) to introduce more young people to a career in engineering while addressing any barriers that might exist for them. They also highlighted the recent Engineering UK report which showed how young people are concerned about their opportunities, and how coronavirus is shaping their career aspirations.
A critical thread running through our strategy for 2020-2025 is diversity and inclusion, and it is important that engineering opportunities are available to everyone in society regardless of their background.
We still have a long way to go to improve diversity in engineering and to create a truly inclusive society. In September, with Lewis Hamilton, we announced the board members of the Hamilton Commission, a research project aimed at improving the representation of black people in UK motorsport. With our This is Engineering campaign, we continue to inspire the next generation of engineers from all backgrounds, and in November, we brought the engineering profession together to highlight the positive difference engineers can make on This is Engineering Day.
We continue to work to foster talent and diversity so that the UK has a world-leading and truly inclusive engineering workforce. To keep updated with that work through 2021, look out for our news and events on our website, social media channels, and email newsletters.
Thank you to our sponsors
The Engineering Review of the Year was made possible thanks to the support from bp (Headline Sponsor) and Rolls-Royce (Sponsor). Early in the evening, the audience heard from Aleida Rios, Senior Vice President Engineering at bp, about their strategy to reach net zero.