The Royal Academy of Engineering and WMG, at the University of Warwick, have shortlisted 11 exceptional collaborations for the inaugural Bhattacharyya Award. With a cash prize of £25,000, the Bhattacharyya Award will be presented to the team who best demonstrate how industry and universities can work together. Winners will be announced on 16 September 2021.

The Bhattacharyya Award is funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and was announced in July 2019 as a tribute to Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya KT CBE FREng FRS, the Regius Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Warwick and founder of WMG.

Starting his career as a graduate apprentice at Lucas Industries, Professor Lord Bhattacharyya became Britain’s first ever Professor of Manufacturing. Having seen first-hand how slowly academic advances were translated into real business and social change, he founded WMG in 1980 to help business innovate and help university researchers change our lives. Academic excellence with industrial relevance has always been at the heart of WMG, and today, it is one of the world’s top applied research centres, with a reputation for academic excellence and business results spanning the globe.

The shortlist features collaborations that address some of the most pressing national and global challenges, from cybersecurity and medical simulation to powering the aircraft of the future.

The full shortlist is as follows:

• Imperial College London and Shell
• Loughborough University and Rolls Royce
• Queen’s University Belfast and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies
• Swansea University and the Steel Strategic Alliance
• The University of Manchester and BP
• University of Bath and the Institute for Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems
• University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction
• University of Leeds and Simulation Solutions Ltd
• University of Sheffield and Siemens
• University of Surrey and the 5G Innovation Centre
• University of York and the High Integrity Systems Engineering group

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “We are extremely proud to be funding the Bhattacharyya Award, which encourages collaboration between our fantastic universities and businesses. By working hand-in-hand, academic advances can be quickly translated to industry, bringing forward game-changing innovations and helping us to build back better from the pandemic.”

Professor Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FREng FRS, immediate past-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is chair of the judging panel for the Bhattacharyya Award. She said: “Lord Bhattacharyya was a strong advocate of an effective industrial strategy, seeking a revitalisation of skills policy, a growth in apprenticeships, a focus on the impact of research and training and technology partnerships between industry and universities. We received some fantastic entries that showcase best practice in developing effective collaborations between universities and industry – we hope that these will inspire productive new partnerships in the future.”

Margot James, Executive Chair at WMG, University of Warwick said “The Bhattacharyya Award amplifies the approach Professor Lord Bhattacharyya took in transforming how universities research and educate to meet the needs of industry and society. Supporting genuine collaboration to create relevant and impactful research and enabling education programmes that nurture the brightest talent. The shortlist exemplifies the very best of university/ industry collaboration. We look forward to seeing which collaboration is selected as the overall winner.”

The winner of the Bhattacharyya Award will be announced on Thursday 16 September 2021. Those wishing to attend can register via the Academy’s website here.

Notes for Editors

1. WMG, University of Warwick, is a world leading research and education group, transforming organisations and driving innovation through a unique combination of collaborative research and development, and pioneering education programmes.

   As an international role model for successful partnerships between academia and the private and public sectors, WMG develops advancements nationally and globally, in applied science, technology and engineering, to deliver real impact to economic growth, society and the environment.

   WMG’s education programmes focus on lifelong learning of the brightest talent, from the WMG Academies for Young Engineers, degree apprenticeships, undergraduate and postgraduate, through to professional programmes.

   An academic department of the University of Warwick, and a centre for the HVM Catapult, WMG was founded by the late Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 to help reinvigorate UK manufacturing and improve competitiveness through innovation and skills development.
    

2. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact: Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering T: 020 7766 0636 E: Jane Sutton

• Prosthetic hands that restore a human-like sense of touch to amputees among the latest projects to be supported by the Academy’s flagship scheme for early-career researchers

Sixteen promising global research talents have been selected from a competitive application process to be the 20^th cohort awarded Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships.

The research supported by the latest fellowships is as diverse as ever and encompasses new medical imaging technologies, super-smart textiles for remote health monitoring, improved wastewater treatments, miniaturisation of quantum technologies for atomic-based sensors, and next-generation permeable infrastructure to increase airport resilience to increasing rainfall. Prosthetic hands that restore a human-like sense of touch to amputees and novel materials capable of withstanding the demands of nuclear fusion applications are also among the research projects that promise enormous societal and economic benefit.

Top row L to R: Dr Alexander Darlington; Dr Alalea Kia; Dr Ajit Pillai; Dr Lewis Owen
Bottom row L to R: Dr Ciaran McCreesh; Dr Benjamin Ward-Cherrier; Dr Beatriz Mingo; Dr Adam Berrington

Research Fellowships are the Academy’s flagship scheme that support outstanding early-career researchers to become future research leaders in engineering. The fellowships are designed to advance excellence in engineering by providing funding for five years to allow awardees the freedom to concentrate on basic research in any field of engineering.

Over the past 20 years, over £106 million in funding has been provided to over 217 researchers and the scheme is currently supporting 87 Research Fellowships in 31 universities across the UK, over 30 per cent of which are held by women.

In addition to funding, awardees have also received mentoring from more than 180 Academy Fellows, who provide valuable advice and industry links.

Professor Philip Nelson CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships Steering Group, says: “The Academy owes a huge debt of gratitude to the many Fellows who provide a considerable amount of time and in-kind help with the selection, mentoring and networking of awardees. By providing long-term support in this way, they are helping the next generation of leaders establish their independence and global reputation and contribute towards building a sustainable society and inclusive economy that works for everyone.”

Top row L to R: Dr Ishara Dharmasena; Dr Abby Wilson; Dr Robert House; Dr Euan Allen
Bottom row L to R: Dr James McGilligan, Dr Federico Belli, Dr Rachael Tobin; Dr Mathew Brown

The full list of Research Fellows and their projects is as follows:

• Dr Euan Allen, University of Bath
  Quantum light sources for sensing

• Dr Federico Belli, Heriot-Watt University
  Hollow-fibre optical parametric light sources (HOPS): a new generation of lasers

• Dr Adam Berrington, University of Nottingham
  Accelerated imaging of metabolism in brain tumours

• Dr Mathew Brown, Newcastle University
  Exploiting viral ecology to engineer better biological wastewater treatment

• Dr Alexander Darlington, University of Warwick
  Overcoming cellular constraints for real-world engineering of biological systems

• Dr Ishara Dharmasena, Loughborough University
  Triboelectrically powered super-smart textiles for remote health monitoring

• Dr Robert House, University of Oxford
  Disordered cathode materials for sustainable batteries beyond Li-ion

• Dr Alalea Kia, Imperial College London
  Cleared for landing: next-generation permeable infrastructure for resilient airports

• Dr Ciaran McCreesh, University of Glasgow
  Trustworthy constraint programming and optimisation

• Dr James McGilligan, University of Strathclyde
  Micro-fabricating chip-scale atomic platforms for quantum navigators

• Dr Beatriz Mingo, University of Manchester
  Next generation of ceramic coatings for active protection of light alloys

• Dr Lewis Owen, University of Sheffield
  Probing local atomic structure in novel chemically complex materials

• Dr Ajit Pillai, University of Exeter
  A new spatial data paradigm integrating autonomous vessels and models

• Dr Rachael Tobin, Heriot-Watt University
  Quantum optical detection techniques for high-resolution depth imaging through obscurants

• Dr Benjamin Ward-Cherrier, University of Bristol
  Tactile neuroprosthetics: bridging the gap between artificial and biological touch

• Dr Abby Wilson, University College London
  Clinically translatable analysis of corneal biomechanics: towards optimal, patient-customised therapies

To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Research Fellowships, the Academy has produced a short film (three and a half minutes), featuring awardees, past and present.

Notes for editors

1. The Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships support early-career researchers to establish successful research careers and become future research leaders in their fields. The scheme provides funding for five years to allow awardees the freedom to concentrate on basic research in any field of engineering and establish a track record in the field. Funding for the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowships is provided by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

   The scheme is currently open for applications until Tuesday 21 September 2021. The current round accepts applications for the following research fellowship schemes:

2. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering
T: 020 7766 0745
E: pippa.cox@raeng.org.uk

The Academy celebrated some of the UK’s most inspiring engineers last month at its first in-person event since the start of the pandemic. HRH The Princess Royal, Royal Fellow of the Academy, attended the event and met the winners at a special Awards Celebration on 13 July. Her Royal Highness presented the 2021 MacRobert Award, the most prestigious prize for excellence in UK engineering innovation, to London-based startup DnaNudge. Supported by the Worshipful Company of Engineers, the MacRobert Award carries a prize of £50,000 for the winning team.

The Awards Celebration took place at Prince Philip House, generously supported by bp. The event also recognised exceptional achievements by engineers at all stages of their careers through several other major awards.

MacRobert Award winner DnaNudge, based at the Imperial College London Translation and Innovation Hub in White City, has created the world’s first service to use consumers’ own DNA to nudge them towards healthier choices while shopping. Instead of a procedure that in the past would have taken days and required experts in a laboratory to analyse the results, DnaNudge’s lab-in-cartridge system allows individuals to provide a simple cheek swab in-store or posted from home. Last year the technology was also adapted to deliver a rapid, lab-free RT-PCR COVID-19 test that is being used in NHS hospitals and by leading arts and cultural organisations to support safe resumption of performances.

This year’s two MacRobert Award finalists were also present at the event: Chepstow-based Creo Medical, which designs and manufactures highly advanced miniaturised surgical tools that integrate radio frequency and high-frequency microwave energy for highly targeted, minimally invasive endoscopic surgery; and flexible microchip pioneer PragmatIC Semiconductor, which has developed flexible integrated circuits, taking the silicon out of silicon chips. 

The celebration also saw the presentation of the Major Project Award to the MAST Upgrade Project, a pivotal step towards achieving commercially viable fusion power plants and a future source of clean, safe and plentiful energy. MAST Upgrade is a unique, compact spherical tokamak fusion experiment that began operations in October 2020. The UK is pioneering smaller, cheaper fusion devices and MAST-U is an essential preparatory experiment for the STEP programme, which aims to deliver the first fusion prototype powerplant. The leadership team nominated reflect the breadth of engineering capability needed to deliver this, from high-voltage power and complex and precise mechanical assembly, to control and instrumentation, underpinned by transformative, ambitious science. MAST Upgrade required precision engineering of over 130,000 new components, with 90% of contracts placed in the UK supply chain.

Dr Larissa Suzuki, Data and AI Practice Lead at Google Cloud, was awarded the Rooke Award for the public promotion of engineering. Dr Suzuki is a renowned technologist, entrepreneur and engineer who has received numerous awards for her contribution to industry and international science. She founded the UCL Society of Women Engineers and co-founded the London branch of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. She also developed education initiatives in Brazil, bringing the joy of computer programming and engineering to thousands of women, ethnic minorities and young people. Dr Suzuki is an active speaker on diversity, disability inclusion and her experience of autism, increasing awareness, empathy and inclusion of neurodiverse people in the engineering workforce.

Three Silver Medals were also presented at the event to engineering entrepreneurs who have made a big impact through commercialising their work.

Dr Tom Carter, CTO of Ultraleap, invented a technology that uses ultrasound to create virtual buttons and touch-free displays. Sound waves from a collection of small ultrasonic speakers are focused onto the user’s hands, causing the skin to vibrate and elicit the sensation of touch.

Dr Andrew Lynn, CEO of Fluidic Analytics, is a materials engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. Fluidic Analytics has launched two products commercially and one has made fundamental contributions to breakthroughs in the understanding of the mechanisms of action of drugs for Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dr Sithamparanathan Sabesan, CEO of PervasID Ltd, has been internationally recognised for his work in battery-free radio frequency identification (RFID) tag tracking, which has resulted in four patents and is backed by leading strategic investors such as Stanley Black & Decker, who use it to track complex sets of manufacturing tools.

Professor Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, says: “It is vital that we celebrate engineers who have achieved great things, both to acknowledge the excellence of their work and its positive impact on society and also to provide inspiration for those considering careers in our profession. Our gathering this year was much smaller than usual, owing to pandemic restrictions, but our engineering stars shone all the brighter and we congratulate them all.”

Notes for editors

1. Full details of the Academy Awards Celebration are available at our Awards Celebration page.
2. Further awards were presented by our Royal Fellow HRH The Princess Royal at earlier events:
   – The Prince Philip Medal was presented virtually to Dr Gladys West and announced on 10 June
   – Five winners of the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineers of the Year were announced on 6 July during a special visit to the Thames Tideway Project, Dr Marzia Bolpagni also received the Sir George Macfarlane Medal for excellence in the early stage of her career.
3. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.

   In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public.

   Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering
T: +44 207 766 0636
E: jane.sutton@raeng.org.uk

On 9 August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its Working Group I report Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, the first installment of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

In response to the report, Dr Nick Starkey, Royal Academy of Engineering Policy Director, said:

“This latest report from the IPCC puts in clear terms the scale of the present threat of climate change, and demonstrates the need for a clear, comprehensive and specific strategy for climate action.  The UK is not on track to meet our existing carbon targets, and our goal of 78% emissions reduction by 2035 will not be reached without deep energy efficiency measures and ensuring that policies right across government actively contribute to achieving this target.

“There is no single technology, solution or action that can address the challenge alone, so a successful strategy must connect many different solutions and actions as a whole system. This means recognising the increasing connectivity and interdependency of the world’s infrastructure and economies, setting a clear time frame and process for eliminating the emissions within our control, and engaging citizens to help fairly distribute the costs and benefits of the transition to net zero. Engineers of all kinds have a crucial role decarbonising the UK, both in developing innovations and new solutions, and in designing, building, retrofitting, operating and ensuring the safety of the infrastructure and technologies for a decarbonised UK.”

Find out more about the Academy’s programme of work ahead of COP26: Engineering Zero

The Royal Academy of Engineering has announced seven outstanding engineering researchers as recipients of its prestigious Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships. They will work on a wide variety of engineering projects, from producing green hydrogen and using AI to design sustainable drainage systems to creating neural interfaces for stroke and spinal injury rehabilitation.

The fellowships, which are supported by the Leverhulme Trust, allow awardees to focus on full-time research for up to a year by covering the costs of a replacement academic to take over their teaching and administrative duties. This allows mid-career engineers to reinvigorate their research interests and it also gives other junior academics an opportunity to gain valuable teaching and administrative experience by stepping in to do those duties in the awardee’s place.

Professor Stephen McLaughlin FREng FRSE, Chair of the Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships selection panel, said: “Academic career progression can result in increased administrative and teaching commitments, at the expense of the time available for personal research projects. The Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships are awarded to enable mid-career academics to focus on such projects while relieving them of additional workload responsibilities.

“I am very pleased to see such a diverse range of topics covered by this year’s awards, from tackling environmental issues such as monitoring water pollutants, sustainable development in drainage and construction, and innovative developments in healthcare provision. These are research projects that could deliver significant benefits to society and the economy.”

L to R: Dr Amit N Pujari; Dr Amy Gandy; Dr George Vasdravellis; Dr Zeike Amos Taylor; Dr Sonia Melendi-Espina; Dr Bahman Amini Horri; and Dr Kourosh Behzdian

The full list of 2021/22 RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships is as follows:

• Dr Bahman Amini Horri, University of Surrey
  Development of a redox hydrothermal reactor for production of green hydrogen
• Dr Kourosh Behzadian, University of West London
  Data-driven AI-based solutions for smart sustainable drainage systems
• Dr Amy Gandy, University of Sheffield
  Understanding radiation damage mechanisms in novel, compositionally complex alloys
• Dr Sonia Melendi-Espina, University of East Anglia
  Remote and continuous monitoring of priority organic pollutants in water
• Dr Amit N Pujari, University of Hertfordshire
  Non-invasive, adaptive, peripheral neural interfaces for stroke and spinal-injury rehabilitation
• Dr Zeike Amos Taylor, University of Leeds
  DIADEM-ART: DomaIn-Aware DEep learning Models for motion-Adaptive RadioTherapy
• Dr George Vasdravellis, Heriot-Watt University
  3d-printed structural nodes for sustainable and resilient steel buildings

Notes for Editors

1. The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925, the Trust has supported grants and scholarships for research and education. Today, The Leverhulme Trust is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing over £60m a year. The Trust provides funding across a range of academic disciplines such as arts, sciences, engineering and social sciences, with an aim of supporting talented individuals to realise their personal vision in research and professional training.

   Details of researchers awarded RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships since 2012 are available at RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships

2. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

Media enquiries to: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0745; email: Pippa.Cox@raeng.org.uk