The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has opened for nominations and the judging panel is revealed.
Nominations for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, a £1 million global award which celebrates the greatest engineering achievements that benefit humanity, have opened.
The judging panel is made up of 14 senior international names in the fields of chemical, electrical, mechanical and civil engineering, including Lord Broers, past president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and celebrity astronomer Professor Brian Cox, Professor Calestous Juma in the USA and Narayana Murthy in India.
Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation, Lord Browne of Madingley, hailed the importance of engineering in the UK economy. “The UK needs two million more engineers over the next decade to help grow the UK economy and maintain competitiveness in a global environment,” he said.
“It is absolutely critical that we as a nation make it our mission to inspire and excite the next generation of engineers. It is only through engineering that ideas are brought out of the lab and into the marketplace,” Lord Browne added.
Engineering makes up 20% of the UK’s economy, down from 34% in 1990. The 10 engineering-related UK Sector Skills Councils estimate that the engineering industry will need over two million new recruits at all levels in the next decade to join the 5.6 million already employed by the sector.
The councils say an estimated 500,000 engineering graduates come out of India and China every year, while about 25,000 are being produced in the UK.
Her Majesty The Queen, patron of the Prize, commented: “Over the past 60-years, I have had the privilege of seeing how engineering developments can make a profound impact on people’s lives. I am delighted to lend my support to this prize and I hope that it inspires many more people across the globe to develop life changing engineering creations in the years to come.”
The judges of the Queen Elizabeth Prize are:
Prof Frances Arnold, Chemical Engineer, Professor at Caltech, USA; Lord Alec Broers FREng Hon FMedSci FRS (Chair), Electrical Engineer, past President, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK; Prof Brian Cox OBE, Particle Physicist. Royal Society Research Fellow, University of Manchester, UK; Prof Lynn Gladden, CBE FREng FRS Chemical Engineer. Professor at University of Cambridge, UK; Diane Greene, Director of Intuit, Director of Google, USA; Prof Calestous Juma, HonFREng FRS, Professor of International Development and Director of Science, Tech and Globalisation Project, Harvard University, USA; Prof Hiroshi Komiyama, Chemical Engineer President Engineering Academy of Japan;
Prof John Hennessy, Electrical Engineer. President, Stanford University, USA; Prof. Dr. h.c. Reinhard Hüttl, President, acatech, Germany; Nathan Mhyrvold, Co-founder, Intellectual Ventures, USA; Narayana Murthy, Electronic Engineer. Founder, Infosys, India; Prof Choon Fong Shih, Mechanical Engineer. President, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; Dr Charles Vest FREng Mechanical Engineer. President, National Academy of Engineering, USA; Paul Westbury FREng, Civil Engineer. CEO, Buro Happold, UK
