The Institution could not function without the tireless support of members in the volunteer network around the world. 2011 saw 26 new international volunteers; thriving public and member engagement around the world; and a doubling of the number of Ambassadors.
One thousand members joined the Institution’s international community in 2011. Membership swelled in new areas, particularly under the five new member groups launched in 2010: Italy, Switzerland, Texas, Spain and Greece. The continued growth of the international member base means international representation now exceeds 20% of the Institution’s overall membership.
The recruitment of volunteers flourished around the world: 26 new international recruits joined the Institution’s team in locations as diverse as Oman, Bolivia, Russia and Qatar. Volunteers identified opportunities for members in their local area to progress within the profession; the Member to Fellow events held around the UK helped contribute to another record rise in applications for fellowship received by the Institution in 2011.
The global volunteer network plays a pivotal role in delivering the Institution’s face to face engagement with members and the interested public. More than 1,000 active volunteers attracted over 51,000 attendees at just under 1,000 regional events worldwide. For the UK this represented a 10% increase in attendance on 2010 figures.
An estimated 50% of the event attendees comprised non-members, including school students, members of other institutions, and the general public. They were attracted by concepts such as drilling on Mars, designing for the Flintstones and ‘Hollywood Science’. In September, the Bath and Bristol Area set a new record with a talk on reducing carbon emissions in the UK by Professor David MacKay with over 800 squeezed into a lecture theatre in Bristol University. The positive interaction with other institutions and the increased use of digital communication to raise awareness of events were particularly pleasing.
Regional meetings were held in Texas, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates and were attended by Institution staff. Their purpose is supporting the members in each location and facilitating co-operation for continued growth in international influence.
Over the course of the year, John Wood, the outgoing President and Chief Executive Stephen Tetlow met members all around the globe, making ground-breaking visits to meet burgeoning communities of engineers in China, India, Italy,
Belgium, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, to develop the Institution’s already strong bonds with the multi-national and local engineering companies who have operations there. The President, Rod Smith, concentrated on UK regional visits including high profile events in Cumbria and Loughborough.
Institution volunteers successfully brought together apprentices, engineering employers, media and Parliamentarians for a high profile event which showcased the skills of some of the country’s top engineering talent to a Government minister.
Designed to highlight the best young engineering apprentices in the East of England, and promote engineering as a career, the Apprentice Challenge featured a line-up of 15 teams from companies and colleges including Bedford College (with Vauxhall); Carl Zeiss; West Suffolk College; MBDA; Hutchinson Ports UK, Port of Felixstowe; Sulzer; Lotus Engineering; CLS Offshore; City College Norwich; Marshall Aerospace and North Hertfordshire College with EADS Astrium. The teams had just two hours to design and build a mini drag racer entirely from scrap which then had to
cover a distance of two metres in the quickest time possible while carrying increasingly heavy weights. Marshall Aerospace won the Most Innovative Design Award, which was presented by Andrew Lansley CBE MP for South Cambridgeshire and Secretary of State for Health, who commented that as engineering is one of Britain’s most important industries, it was heartening to see our next generation of engineers taking to the challenge with such innovation and enthusiasm.
Ninety members came together for the second Volunteer Ambassador Conference at Sheffield University to learn skills relating to all aspects of their volunteer roles from chairing committees to inspiring primary school children. Once again the attendees represented the full range of volunteering roles that the Institution has to offer and this meant an excellent chance to network with other members, volunteers and staff and share ideas and best practice.
The Young Member Board received more nominations than ever before for its annual Young Member of the Year Award, reflecting the breadth, quantity and quality of volunteering currently undertaken by members under 30. The Board recognised the exceptional contributions of six outstanding young members from UK and international regions, with Paul Cummins, a committee member from the Aberdeen panel, ultimately named as the overall winner.
455 new ambassadors were recruited in 2011 meaning that worldwide by the end of the year, 1080 members were listed as Ambassadors in total. Demonstrating how passionately members feel about inspiring the next generation, education was the main focus for these new recruits, with many choosing to volunteer with STEMNET, Primary Engineer, Bloodhound and the Smallpeice Trust.
Over 100 volunteers from the UK received training to increase press coverage in their local area and help them to hone digital communications for the more effective promotion of events and engagement activities near them.
During the year, there was continued development of digital communications channels to optimise and facilitate member engagement around the world. The Young Members’ online blog Developing Engineers went from strength to strength, receiving a total of 8,488 visits, of which 6,007 were unique visitors. The blog is a fresh platform for informal discussions about engineering in a forum that invites engineers, whether they are members or non-members or based in or outside the UK alike, to join the debate.
Engineers from North America, Asia and Europe were among the most frequent bloggers. Equally, the digital international newsletter continued as a means of communicating the Institution’s strategic influence throughout the membership. The Institution will be working to develop further international content across its communications streams including producing market-specific collateral for international business.
For the first time, all Corporate Members had the opportunity to elect their representatives in the seven new international regions: Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, North East Asia, Oceania, South East Asia and Southern Asia. This resulted in seven regional chairs and seven regional young member representatives worldwide.
In 2012, the Institution is keen to expand through key relationships with businesses, educational establishments and members worldwide. It will launch a new international development team which, with the International Strategy Board (ISB), will focus on relationship building and business development worldwide, but in particular in the key growth areas of China, Hong Kong, India and the Middle East. In India, a regional director will be responsible for local relationship development while the Hong Kong office will act as the hub for targeted membership development in the North East Asia region. As part of the ongoing development of our activities the ISB will convene in Singapore in April 2012: the first time that it has ever met outside the UK.
Scholarships and Awards
The Institution’s Trust Funds were again successful in assisting members during the difficult financial climate with just over £330,000 being awarded to undergraduates and postgraduates during their degrees at university and conference grants enabling members to present papers at overseas conferences.
The Annual Vision Awards ceremony took place on 28 September 2011, the same day as the Annual Dinner, to celebrate the achievements of engineering technicians, undergraduates and Whitworth Award holders and eminent mechanical engineers who received the major prizes and awards. Three Visionaries, each chosen for their talent, leadership skills, motivation and a desire to inspire the next generation, were presented with a trophy by the President:
- Philip Deakin – Undergraduate Visionary
- Michael Tetley – EngTech Visionary
- David Eaves – Whitworth Visionary
The Apprentice of the Year was Jennifer Harvey from MBDA with Charlotte Ryall from Hamworthy Combustion and Robert Morgan from Unity Mine being awarded runner up prizes.
President Roderick Smith presented the Undergraduate Scholarships – which were supported by Rolls-Royce plc and AMEC – the first IMechE Land Rover Spen King Sustainability Award and Postgraduate Scholarships.
Fifteen undergraduates were awarded a Whitworth Scholarship Award; one graduate was elected Whitworth Senior Scholar, ten graduates were elected to Whitworth Scholar and received their medals and certificates from the President
of the Whitworth Society, David Eaves. The major prizes and awards of the Institution were awarded as follows:
Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal 2010 (Gold medal, bronze medal replica to co authors) to Dr Jonathan Ong, Dr Robert Miller and Professor John Denton for their paper, ‘The prediction of hot streak migration in a high-pressure turbine’, published in the Journal of Power and Energy.
George Stephenson Prize 2010 (£500 + bronze medal to lead author and co authors) to Dr Brendan Sloan, Dr Jian Wang, Dr Stephen Spence, Professor Srinivasan Raghunathan and David Riordan for their paper, ‘Aerodynamic performance of a bypass engine with fan nozzle exit area change by warped chevrons’, published in the Journal of
Aerospace Engineering.
Safety Award in Mechanical Engineering 2010 (£500 + certificate) to Francisco J Sáez Nieto, Rosa Arnaldo Valdés, Eduardo García González, Gerard McAuley and Maria Isabel Izquierdo for their paper entitled, ‘Development of a three-dimensional collision risk model tool to assess safety in high density en-route airspaces’, published in the Journal of Aerospace Engineering.
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