The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior fellow and remained so until his death. The Fellowship was incorporated and granted a royal charter on 17 May 1983 and became the Royal Academy of Engineering on 16 March 1992. It is governed according to the charter and associated statutes and regulations (as amended from time to time).[1][2]
The Fellowship focused on championing excellence in all fields of engineering. Activities began in earnest in the mid-1970s with the Distinction lecture series, now known as the Hinton lectures. The Fellowship was asked to advise the Department of Industry for the first time, and the Academy became host and presenter of the MacRobert Award.[6]
In the 1980s, the Fellowship received its own royal charter along with its first government grant-in-aid. At the same time, it also received significant industrial funding, initiated its research programme to build bridges between academia and industry, and opened its doors to international and honorary fellows.[7]
In 1990, the Academy launched its first major initiative in education, Engineering Education Continuum, which evolved into the BEST Programme[8] and Shape the Future and Tomorrow's Engineers.[9]
The Academy's increasing level of influence – in policy, research and education – was recognized when it was granted a royal title and became The Royal Academy of Engineering in 1992.[10]
The Academy's current logo[11] is inspired by the Neolithic hand axe, humans' first technological advance, which was taken to be a symbol appropriate to the Academy, supposedly representative of the ever-changing relationship between humanity and technology.[12]
The building was renamed Prince Philip House,[13] after renovation works were completed in 2012.
Activities
The Academy is instrumental in two policy alliances set up in 2009 to provide coherent advice on engineering education and policy across the profession: Education for Engineering[14] and Engineering the Future.[15]
The Academy is one of four agencies that receive funding from the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for activities that support government policy on public understanding of science and engineering.[16]
As part of its programme to communicate the benefits and value of engineering to society, the Academy publishes a quarterly magazine, Ingenia[1]. The Academy says that Ingenia is written for a non-specialist audience and is "aimed at all those with an interest in engineering, whether working in business and industry, government, academia or the financial community". The Academy also makes Ingenia available to A-Level students in 3,000 schools in the UK.
Presidents
The president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the elected officer of the Academy, presides over meetings of the council. The president is elected for a single term of not more than five years.
The Fellowship currently includes over 1,500 engineers from all sectors and disciplines of engineering. The fellows, distinguished by the title Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering and the post-nominal designation FREng, lead, guide, and contribute to the Academy's work and provide expertise.[17]
The Academy strives to ensure that the pool of candidates for election to the Fellowship better reflects the diverse make-up of society as a whole. It set up the Proactive Membership Committee[18] in 2008 to identify and support the nomination of candidates from underrepresented areas, with the aim of boosting the number of women candidates, engineers from industry and small and medium enterprises, those from emerging technologies and ethnically diverse backgrounds.[19]
Awards and prizes
With the support of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, the Academy manages the annual Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, the premier prize for UK innovation in engineering. First presented in 1969, the award honors the winning company with a gold medal and the team members with a prize of £50,000.
The Academy oversees the awarding of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize). The QEPrize is an international, £1 million engineering prize that "rewards and celebrates the engineers responsible for a ground-breaking innovation that has been of global benefit to humanity". The objective of the prize is to "raise the public profile of engineering and to inspire young people to become engineers".[20]
The Academy's Sir George Macfarlane Medal is an annual award that "recognizes a UK engineer who has demonstrated excellence in the early stage of their career".[21]
The Prince Philip Medal, named after Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and "awarded periodically to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering as a whole through practice, management or education."[22]
Chair in Emerging Technologies, a scheme providing long-term support to visionary researchers in developing technologies with high potential to deliver economic and social benefits to the United Kingdom.[23]
Engineering Leadership Scholarship, awarded to engineering undergraduate engineering students in the UK with high potential for leadership in the sector. Awardees undertake an accelerated personal development programme to assist awardees in becoming future leaders.[24]
