RAE Annual review - Cover - Royal Academy of Engineering

Building organisational capacity
The Academy endeavours
to find the best engineers
from a wide range of
backgrounds for nomination
to the Fellowship. To provide
a quality venue for its
events and resources for
its wide-ranging education
and engagement work, the
Academy also seeks funding
and in-kind support from a
range of partners.
Babcock apprentices at Rosyth Dockyard
constructing a model of the the S-shaped
walkway that will act as the entrance to the
Forum for engineering
Fellowship and Proactive Fellowship
activities
Fellows of the Academy are
leading engineers in the UK drawn
from academia, industry and the
not-for-profit sectors. Fellowship
is a national honour, awarded for
outstanding personal engineering
achievements, exemplified by
individual leadership in organisations
demonstrating significant technical
engineering responsibility and
by influential contributions to
major committees and agencies
concerned with engineering
policy or practice. Election to
the Fellowship is managed by
current Fellows of the Academy.
As a peer-nominated group,
candidates may tend to come from
the more familiar areas, sectors
and organisations where current
Fellows work. In order to reach
beyond these sectors, the Academy
created a Proactive Membership
Committee, tasked to research,
identify and select for nomination
candidates from a broad range of
sectors of engineering and society,
currently under-represented among
the Fellowship.
Specifically, this means a drive to
identify more candidates from industry,
especially from smaller companies and
companies working in areas of new and
emerging technologies. There remains
a continual need for more nominations
of women engineers, younger engineers
and those from black and minority
ethnic groups. Additionally, the
Proactive International Fellowship Group
works to increase nominations from
underrepresented regions, including
South America, Asia and Africa.
Last year, 2011, saw the highest ever
number of new nominations for
Fellowship, 112 in all. In total, 50 UK
Fellows were elected, along with six
International Fellows and three Honorary
Fellows. Included in the list were nine
women, more than in any previous
Academy Fellowship election.
This work requires the participation of
many Fellows: to scout for potential
candidates who may otherwise remain
overlooked; to prepare the necessary
nomination proposals to submit their
names for consideration as candidates;
and to assess these candidates’ credentials
at the request of the membership
panels prior to prospective election.
Forum for engineering
A nine-month building redevelopment
project has transformed the Academy’s
public spaces into state-of-the-art
modern facilities for meetings,
events and other activities, with the
reopening achieved on time and on
budget in April 2012. The project has
been made possible by a fundraising
campaign that, despite challenging
economic conditions, raised the £6.5
million required.
The building has been named Prince
Philip House, in honour of the Academy’s
Senior Fellow. The public rooms will be
collectively referred to as the Forum for
engineering. This reflects the Academy’s
aspiration that the venue will act
as a focal point for the engineering
profession and contribute towards
raising the visibility and recognition
of engineering. It will underline the
Academy’s leadership role and will
support more frequent, systematic
and effective engagement with
key audiences.
Development successes
During the financial year, Fellows’
generosity has been pivotal, with
a further £864,000 contributed to
the Forum project, including a most
generous gift from Immediate Past
President Lord Browne FREng FRS.
The project also attracted major new
grants from the Kirby Laing and ERA
foundations. The Academy decided
to acknowledge the generosity of
these and other major supporters
through the naming of rooms in
the Forum. Gifts were also gratefully
received from HSBC, Goldman Sachs,
PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Linklaters.
The Forum project attracted donations
in kind that added significantly to
the quality and utility of the building.
The sinuous bridge, the striking new
entranceway, was provided by Babcock
International and built by apprentices
at their Rosyth shipyard. Delivery and
installation was provided by William
Hare Group. Other suppliers giving
generous support were ADT Fire and
Security, London Wall Design, Nuaire,
Ruskin Air Management, Schindler,
Toshiba Research Europe, Zehnder
Group and Zumtobel Lighting.
All supporters of the project have been
acknowledged on a panel in the newly
renovated reception area. A benefactors’
book will also be commissioned to
record for posterity all those who have
contributed.
The year saw the securing of further
multi-year support for several Academy
education programmes. Thanks to the
Garfield Weston Foundation, the Barrow
Engineering Project is now funded for
a further two years. The Connecting
Teachers programme, a major new
initiative enabled by BG Group, will
benefit some 240 schools across
the country. A generous grant from
the Nuffield Foundation means the
Academy can now offer engineering
undergraduates bursaries for summer
research placements, helping create the
next generation of research talent. The
Commercial Education Trust has funded
the Academy’s first Visiting Professorship
in Sustainable Wealth Creation.
The Royal Commission for the
Exhibition of 1851 gave its support
to a new secondment programme
which will help technicians broaden
their professional capabilities. This
complements the Technician Council’s
work to promote the standing of
technicians and their role in society. The
Academy is grateful to the Commission
for its support of the Forum project.
The Academy’s annual awards
ceremony is a major component in the
One of the new rooms at the Forum for
engineering
calendar to increase the visibility and
influence of engineering in society, the
media and government. The Academy
thanks BAE Systems, Thales, BP, Shell,
Bosch, Arup and E.ON for sponsoring
the 2011 celebration of engineering
excellence and innovation.
The fundraising Campaign, publicly
launched in 2010 and led by Sir John
Parker FREng, President, drew on the
generosity of many supporters within
the Fellowship and beyond. It has
helped the Academy to forge valuable
new relationships and revitalise others.
The Academy thanks the Campaign
Board members (see Annex) for their
sterling efforts. Their work will be
taken forward by a new Development
advisory board, chaired by Richard
Olver FREng, which will assist the
Academy in building the relationships
required to secure new support for
the future.
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Building organisational capacity
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