Year of Engineering launch

Peter Finegold, Head of Education Policy at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said about the Year of Engineering launch:

"The Year of Engineering is an exciting and important opportunity to inspire young people to pursue an engineering career. Engineering is simply how we use our intelligence and the materials at our disposal to make our lives better, safer, healthier and more enjoyable.

"We face an exciting new technological revolution with all sorts of new opportunities for the next generation of engineers, and it has never been more important to think about how to find, inspire and nurture the engineers of tomorrow.

“But our research indicates that unless students come from an engineering heritage background, they are unlikely to know about the range of interesting career paths engineering has to offer - from working in aerospace to developing life-saving medical devices.

“The Year of Engineering is an opportunity for industry, Government and the wider engineering community to work together to reach out to young people.

“We hope it will build on the work we are already doing to inspire young people about engineering, such as Bloodhound SSC and the Engineering Education Grant Scheme, run in conjunction with the IET, which funds fun engineering education projects.”

Notes to Editors

• For interview requests and queries contact the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Press Office on 020 7973 1261 or email media@imeche.org.
• The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was established in 1847 and has some of the world’s greatest engineers in its history books. It is one of the fastest growing professional engineering institutions. Headquartered in London, we have operations around the world and over 117,000 members in more than 140 countries working at the heart of the most important and dynamic industries such as the automotive, rail, aerospace, medical, power and construction industries.