ENTRIES OPEN FOR ICONIC MACROBERT
AWARD IN ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR
The Royal Academy of Engineering
MacRobert Award, which will celebrate
its 50th anniversary next year, is open for
entries, seeking the best of UK engineering
innovation for 2019. CT scanner, with Sir Godfrey Hounsfield
and his team at EMI winning the MacRobert
Award seven years before he was awarded
the Nobel Prize. CT scanners are now found
in almost every hospital in the world.
The MacRobert Award recognises
outstanding engineering innovations
developed in the UK that can demonstrate
commercial success and a tangible benefit
to society. The team behind the winning
innovation receives a £50,000 cash prize, a
gold medal and national acclaim. Cambridge-based Owlstone Medical won
the 2018 award for the ReCIVA Breath
Sampler, the world’s first ’breath biopsy’
system. The system can identify chemical
biomarkers in human breath for a variety
of serious diseases, including cancer, and
the company aims to save 100,000 lives by
enabling earlier diagnosis.
Over the past five decades the MacRobert
Award has been remarkably accurate in
predicting the key innovations that would
shape the world we live in. The inaugural
winners in 1969 were Rolls-Royce for
Pegasus - the world’s first short takeoff
and vertical landing engine, used in the
iconic Harrier aircraft - and Freeman, Fox
and Partners for the Severn Bridge, which
heralded a new era of bridge building and
was Grade I listed in 1999.
The MacRobert Award has celebrated a
string of engineering firsts developed
in the UK that have impacted on many
sectors, including medicine, transport,
manufacturing and technology. In 1972 it
recognised the life-saving potential of the
58
PECM Issue 35
Dr Dame Sue Ion DBE FREng FRS, Chair
of the Royal Academy of Engineering
MacRobert Award judging panel, said:
“The UK has a rich heritage of engineering
innovation and has been the driving force
behind many technological developments
that we now take for granted. A quick look
through the MacRobert Award’s 50-year
history, from Johnson Matthey for the
catalytic converter in 1980, to Buro Happold
in 1999 for the Millennium Dome’s roof
structure, and to the Raspberry Pi in 2017,
highlights why the UK is famed for its
engineering prowess.
“Engineering innovation is not just part of
the UK’s legacy, it’s also key to our future
NEWS
success, as government has recognised
through its industrial strategy. It’s vital that
we recognise and celebrate the innovations
that have a demonstrable benefit to our
lives. Each year I am delighted by the
excellent engineering advances that are
submitted and I look forward to seeing the
entries for this special anniversary year.”
In celebration of five decades of the
UK’s finest engineering innovations, the
Academy will be running a programme
of special events and activities
throughout the anniversary year. Finalists
will be announced in June and the
50th MacRobert Award will be presented at
the Academy Awards Dinner at Banqueting
House in London on 11 July.
Entries for the 2019 MacRobert Award are
currently open at http://www.raeng.org.
uk/grants-and-prizes/prizes-and-medals/
other-awards/the-macrobert-award. The
deadline for applications is 31 January
2019.
For more information and a full list
of previous winners and finalists,
visit: www.raeng.org.uk/prizes/
macrobert