The MacRobert Award is regarded as the leading prize recognising UK innovation in engineering by corporations.[1] The winning team receives a gold medal and a cash sum of £50,000.

The annual award process begins with an invitation to companies to submit entries, by the end of January. The judging panel for the awards, which includes several Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering, then selects a shortlist of six to eight candidates. Following site visits, the judges produce a shortlist of three or four candidates for visits by the whole judging panel.

The judges consider three key criteria when assessing entries:

  • Innovation
  • Commercial success
  • Benefit to society

The guidance for submissions explains that "All three criteria may be interpreted broadly to reflect the very diverse nature of engineering and its role in every aspect of society".

In 2019, the 50th anniversary year of the awards,[2] Royal Mail issued a series of postage stamps marking "the marvels of British engineering", with a new set of 10 stamps that featured, along with other engineering achievements, three past winners of the MacRobert Award.[3]

History

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The award is named in honour of Rachel, Lady MacRobert (1884–1954).[4] It was established in 1969 by the MacRobert Trust. In 1979 the Royal Academy of Engineering took on the administration, supported by the Worshipful Company of Engineers and industry sponsors.

The criteria for judging entries have changed over the years. The original remit was to reward “an outstanding contribution” made “by way of innovation in the fields of engineering or the other physical technologies or in the application of the physical sciences, which has enhanced or will enhance the national prestige and prosperity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. The first rule change was to include commercial success as a criterion. This was done to exclude entries that failed to have any lasting impact in the marketplace.[5]

Winners

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "'Massive leap' wins engineering award". BBC. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  2. ^ "50 years of engineering innovation".
  3. ^ "Royal Mail celebrates British engineering with set of special stamps". Royal Academy of Engineering (Press release).
  4. ^ MacRobert Trust
  5. ^ "50 years of engineering innovation".
  6. ^ "Winners 1969-2015 - Royal Academy of Engineering". Winners 1969-2015 - Royal Academy of Engineering.
  7. ^ Seeing into the Future Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine, Ingenia Magazine, March 2007
  8. ^ BBC NEWS, Bionic hand wins top tech prize
  9. ^ telegraph.co.uk, World's first commercial bionic hand
  10. ^ "Palme d'Or, Ingenia Magazine, September 2008". Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  11. ^ "Top prize for Chinese water cube". BBC News. 2009-06-09. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
  12. ^ "Inmarsat grabs the MacRobert engineering prize". BBC News. 2010-06-08. Retrieved 2010-06-08.
  13. ^ "Back to the future: MacRobert Award 2012 launches by looking back 40 years". Royal Academy of Engineering.
  14. ^ McArdle, Helen. "Edinburgh firm scoops £50,000 MacRobert prize for innovation shown to cut fuel consumption by up to 27 per cent". Herald Scotland. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  15. ^ "Artemis Intelligent Power wins MacRobert Award". RAEng. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  16. ^ Austin-Morgan, Tom. "World's most intelligent prosthetic limb wins MacRobert award". Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  17. ^ "World's most intelligent prosthetic limb wins UK's top innovation prize". Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  18. ^ a b c "MacRobert award". Royal Academy of Engineering. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  19. ^ "Chips that changed the classroom". Ingenia. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  20. ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory. "Raspberry Pi scores UK's top engineering award". BBC. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  21. ^ "Breath Biopsy platform scoops the UK's most prestigious award for engineering innovation". Royal Academy of Engineering (Press release).
  22. ^ "An easier way to diagnose disease". Ingenia. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  23. ^ "The winner of the 2020 MacRobert Award: JCB". Retrieved 23 July 2020.
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