An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1988-1990: THE BARLOW YEARS 79The Award for Industrial Innovation and ProductionIn May 1988 the EngC published ‘Innovators Need More Than Ideas’ as a handbook forindustrial and business innovators. It contained a foreword by His Royal Highness The Princeof Wales in his capacity as Patron of the ‘Award for Industrial Innovation and Production’.The original long-term aim of the Award was to encourage contestants to take theirbusinesses forward into production. The handbook was distributed through the auspices ofBusiness in the Community, the British Venture Capital Association and the UK SciencePark Association. Copies were also sent to the Small Firms Service of the clearing banks. The1988 presentations for the Award were made, as in 1987, by HRH Prince Charles atHighgrove House. Surgeon David Sharpe, the winner, had invented a plastic surgicalretractor. The ceremony was shown, also as in 1987, on BBC’s Tomorrow’s World. Duringthe year a group of venture capital firms supported the Award financially.Finalists in the Prince of Wales Award for Innovation and Production in 1989 were againhosted by the Prince at Highgrove House, and filmed by Tomorrow’s World. Drs John Holianand John Edwards of Amersham International plc won the Award for ‘Amerlite’, aninvention based on horseradish to help doctors diagnose cancer, thyroid disorders andpregnancy abnormalities. The Award was henceforth administered by Business in theCommunity. In 1990 the EngC gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee onScience and Technology, exhorting more Government support for innovation.EngC Staff ChangesA number of personnel associated with the EngC changed towards the close of the 1988 to1990 period. Early in 1990 the EngC recruited Miss Pattie Mee as a Partnership Manager(funded for a year by DTI in conjunction with Business in the Community, to promote itsEnterprise and Education Initiative with companies) to bring companies, schools and collegescloser together.Graham Anthony, Director - Industry and Regions, who took early retirement in 1990, writes:“Frank Tombs and Kenneth Miller had the foresight to integrate (school) Education into myIndustry Directorate. We had a springboard to support ‘Problem Solving in Primary Schools’and to proselytise the major work we did with ‘A Call to Action’ which establishedcontinuing education and training as a fundamental ingredient to today’s engineeringknowledge.“The initiative which gives me most satisfaction is ‘Neighbourhood Engineers’. Both theAffiliates and the ECROs readily embraced this scheme as a practical way of helping ourschools develop their technical skills. I worked very hard in the ECROs because theiractivities crossed all the traditional boundaries, and could potentially have been a realunifying force at the grassroots”.At the beginning of 1990 another industrialist, Perry Goodman BSc, MICeram, FRSA, Headof the Electrical Engineering Branch of the DTI, took over from Graham Anthony as Director- Industry and Regions. Perry Goodman had been Scientific Counsellor at the BritishEmbassy in Paris and then involved in British Government design policy and advisoryservices for industry. Within the private sector his work had included research, developmentand process control on refractory materials.© Engineering Council UK 2004