Member to Fellow Applications

This type of application will be submitted by someone who is already a Member of the Institution (MIMechE) and will also be CEng, IEng or EngTech registrants.

Application documents

The application will consist of an application form, brief CV, organisation chart and evidence of the qualities for Fellowship. Applicants who do not submit evidence of the qualities in clear statements will not be sent for assessment.

IA review

Industrial Advisors will be asked to score the evidence submitted by the applicant and also to provide supporting comments to explain why that score has been awarded. The commentary must be objective and evidence-based. IAs should be aware that applicants can request a copy of their scores and feedback. After completing the scores and justification sections assessors will then pick the most appropriate recommendation, based on the scoring awarded. Explanation of the recommendation should also be provided. Only IAs who are registered as Fellows can review applications for Fellowship.

Qualities for Fellowship

Successful candidates must be able to provide evidence of ALL of the essential qualities, ONE of the desirable qualities, PLUS ONE OTHER, which can be either a desirable or an optional quality.

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Essential Qualities

E1	A position of senior responsibility and/or significant autonomy in your particular field	An applicant must be regularly taking decisions or making judgements that are not essentially dictated by established rules or procedures and which have significant importance in relation to the company, university or other organisation, or an element of the organisation, of reasonable size. This can be in either managerial, commercial or technical fields or a combination of these. The fact that a candidate’s decisions may be subject to review or endorsement by someone more senior would not necessarily be an issue, provided the initiative for proposing the decision lay with the applicant and their decision/judgement was normally accepted. For consultants, whether or not they operate through a personal company, it is the nature of the work that they do and the level at which they interact with their customers which is important.
E2	Demonstrable leadership qualities	This may be in terms of personnel and/or technical matters. There should be clear evidence of the applicants taking the initiative and others following their lead and not just because they are employed to do so. This can include offering advice which is accepted and acted upon in the case of consultants provided the context is sufficiently important. Evidence of leadership outside of employment can be taken into account but is not itself sufficient to satisfy the requirements.
E3	Influencing policy and strategy making decisions in either a technical or business environment	The applicant should have an influence over the policy or strategy adopted by their employer or customer. This may not be direct control but there should be evidence that they have a significant input by way of working up proposals or are regularly consulted regarding important decisions and that their input is recognised. Straightforward changes to working practice within a candidate’s role are not sufficient but a major change of approach or restructuring for which they were responsible could be.
E4	A structured approach to CPD	There should be clear evidence of continuing professional development. Ideally a record of CPD, including any published papers, should be attached but this is not essential where it is clear that appropriate CPD is being undertaken and that it is planned to meet existing and future career needs.h
E5	The promotion of the engineering profession to young engineers and potential engineers.	There should be direct evidence of this. Where this is a function of the role, e.g. academic teaching, it may not be necessary to show anything beyond the job requirements where this is a significant feature of the job. In other cases the input of the applicant should be explicit. It should not simply be assumed that because a manager has a number of young engineers reporting to them that they will be promoting engineering to them. Conversely if it is shown that a manager actively ensures that their staff fulfils this role, they satisfy the requirements for this Quality. Evidence of involvement in the IMechE or other professional engineering activities will assist in meeting this Quality.

Desirable Qualities

Optional Qualities

O1	Responsibility for a budget and the associated risk	The applicant should have significant involvement in setting a substantial budget, whether for a department or a project, and responsible for managing (rather than just monitoring) it. This should be in a context where real management is required. e.g. managing a departmental budget consisting of principally staff costs would not alone meet the requirements and nor would managing a large project budget where it is essentially buying catalogue items of known cost with no requirement to manage risk.
O2	Application of a significant range of fundamental principles and complex techniques across a wide and often unpredictable variety of contexts	The key words here are “significant range” and “complex techniques”. An applicant satisfying this requirement would provide evidence that they dealt with complex and possibly unpredictable problems that required the application of a range of engineering skills and principles either personally or that they supervised and guided those who were doing this. A manager with staff in a range of engineering disciplines or specialisms who plays an active role in resolving issues or an expert in an industry field who makes use of a number of different engineering principles in projects or tasks would satisfy this Quality.
O3	Active development and application of new technologies in engineering and related areas at senior level	This requires evidence of initiation of, or significant role in, the development of new technologies, or the application of recent developments, rather than just being a team member. Evidence of a significant role in change management or leading significant continuous improvement initiatives in an engineering or manufacturing environment could provide evidence for this requirement.

Please note: this list is not prescriptive or exhaustive and therefore other aspects of the applicant’s work can be used to provide evidence. The definitions are provided as guidance. The range of roles undertaken by Fellows is very wide and it would be impossible to encompass them all in the guidance. The guidance should be read as providing an indication of what is expected rather than specific requirements ie. the applicant may provide evidence that meets the intent without necessarily matching the specific examples.

Applicants should demonstrate a continuing involvement with mechanical engineering but do not have to be directly practising engineering at a hands on level. They should demonstrate that engineering knowledge is either a requirement of the role that justifies them being a Fellow or that it enhances their performance in that role in a meaningful way.

Scoring Member to Fellow applications

IAs are asked to score the Qualities on a scale of 1 to 4:

The evidence show that the Quality has not been met
The evidence indicates that the applicant is marginally short of meeting the requirements. For example, the applicant may be undertaking some of the activities described above, but is not able to demonstrate that they are being done on a regular basis or fully at the appropriate level
The evidence indicates that the applicant meets the requirements
The applicant well exceeds the requirements

Review outcomes

IAs should note that ‘good’ Fellows will score level three for most of the qualities; awarding level 4 indicate that the applicant has ‘well exceeded’ the requirements and so will only be used in exceptional cases. Level 4 indicates that someone is outstanding in that quality, for example, someone who was recognised as a national expert in their particular field might scores level 4 in D1. If they are their company's in house expert, they may score a level 3.

Successful applicants will have met or exceeded the minimum score requirements: level 3 or above for all of the essential qualities plus two other level 3 scores – one ‘desirable’, plus one other.

A full explanation of the recommendations available to IAs can be found in the next module.

Find out more about Mutual Recognition Agreement

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D1	Highly specialist knowledge in a specific area of engineering	This requires a level of expertise that has been developed significantly beyond that of a typical engineer in this field (at the appropriate level of registration). It is the sort of person that others working in the field will normally go to for advice in the specialism and someone who might be publishing papers relating to the specialism.
D2	Technical or engineering resource management and/or personnel management and development	Evidence should demonstrate that the applicant has a significant management responsibility for staff and/or technical activities. The management of technical activities does not imply the same depth of knowledge as required at D1 but would imply a broader level of responsibility beyond being a technical specialist working alone. A Project Manager for a project or projects of significant size and complexity might have this quality provided they can demonstrate a track record at this level.