20th Anniversary Awards 2014

In 2014, the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC) will be celebrating 20 years since the joining together of the Engineering Professors’ Conference and the Committee for Engineering in Polytechnics in 1994. To mark the event, we’re offering some awards: an essay prize for students (in collaboration with the Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow) and a public engagement grant award – Engaging in Engineering –  for staff, to which students and staff of EPC member institutions are invited to enter/apply appropriately. Winners will be announced at Congress 2014 in Glasgow on 8/9 April. Please read on for more details…

Public engagement grant award for staff: Engaging in Engineering

Closing date: 18:00 on 3^rd February, 2014.  

At the Engineering Professors’ Council Congress 2013, one of the major messages from all the key stakeholders and speakers – senior politicians, funding councils and senior business leaders alike – was the need for engineers in Higher Education to communicate more engagingly with the community beyond universities about what they do.

A number of learned societies and representative organisations such as the Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry, the Physiological Society etc. offer grant schemes to support public engagement activities and the development of their members in delivering such activities.

As one of the initiatives to celebrate its 20^th Anniversary in its current form, the Engineering Professors’ Council is offering its members the opportunity to bid for funding for public engagement projects which:

• help you to share your expert knowledge through collaboration with partners without a science or engineering background and to reflect on the social impact of your research; or
• develop creative activities that enable you to communicate in new ways and/or to new audiences; or
• design and deliver bespoke leadership development activities for those working in engineering in higher education that equips them with communication and public engagement skills; or
• develop initiatives which help businesses, particularly SMEs, to interact more productively and effectively with universities. We are looking for a new general approach, not a specific topic that might be appropriate for a knowledge transfer project.

The scope is deliberately broad. While it may encompass completely new ideas and activities, it also allows you to build on existing initiatives that have worked well locally or regionally but which might, with some additional funding and/or through collaboration with other Engineering Professors’ Council members, extend the reach and impact to the national level.

So… have you an idea which, perhaps with the support of some colleagues from other parts of the country and with a modest amount of funding could be rolled out nationally? Or perhaps you’ve already developed something that could benefit from such additional input and could be rolled out for use by our wider membership?

At the Engineering Professors’ Council’s Congress in Glasgow in April 2014, 4 shortlisted applicants will have the opportunity to pitch their proposals to Congress delegates who will vote to decide on 2 winning proposals which will be awarded up to £10,000 each. Please read the full details of the guidelines and objectives which are available in the “supporting documentation” tab. You may also download the application form and timetable there.

Supporting documentation

Engaging in Engineering: public engagement grant award scheme

Guidelines and objectives

Application form

Applications process and timetable

For any further information or clarification, please contact us.

Student essay prize (the deadline for submissions has now passed)

Given the Government’s focus on how engineering with contribute to the UK’s Industrial Strategy and future economic well-being, we want to hear from the next generation of engineers. We invite students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, the opportunity to submit an essay on the following topic:

How does engineering contribute to the UK economy and how can that contribution be increased? Is there a role for UK engineering in higher education in making this happen?

The EPC and the Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow are offering cash prizes for the best entries: the overall winner will receive £1,000 and be invited to deliver a presentation based on their work to the Engineering Professors’ Council’s Annual Congress in Glasgow in April 2014 in response to Professor John Perkins’ keynote speech on Engineering Skills in the UK. There will be two runner-up prizes of £500 each available.  The closing date is 8th January, 2014. For full details of how to enter (“rules for entry/submissions instructions”) and some hints and tips, please click on the tabs.

 
Rules for entry/submission instructions

1. The entrant must be enrolled at a UK higher education institution which is a member of the Engineering Professors’ Council (and can be either an undergraduate or postgraduate student) as at 1 December, 2013. (For a list of members see: https://epc.ac.uk/universities/).
2. The essay must be the original and previously unpublished work of the entrant, working alone, and the submission must include a statement to this effect.
3. The work must be no longer than 2,000 words (excluding diagrams and references).
4. The work must be in a style suitable for publication in a journal such as The Engineer or similar.
5. The overall winner must be willing and able to deliver a presentation based on the submitted essay on 9th April, 2014 at the Engineering Professors’ Council Congress in Glasgow.
6. The essay must be in Microsoft Word format (or similar) – that is, not converted to portable document format (pdf).
7. The essay must be submitted as an email attachment, together with the cover sheet, with the following in the title line “SUBMISSION FOR STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE 2013/14” to: Vicky Elston, Administration Manager, Engineering Professors’ Council, Email address: v.elston@epc.ac.uk by noon on 8 January 2014. Late submissions will not be considered by the judging panel.
8. Winners will be notified by 14th February.
9. The decision of the judging panel: Professor Helen Atkinson of the University of Leicester, Professor Mike Bramhall of Sheffield Hallam University, Professor David Harrison of Glasgow Caledonian University and Dr Thurai Rahulan of the University of Salford, is final.

Hints and tips

• Read Professor Perkins’ Engineering Skills in the UK report (November 2013)
• Think about why you chose to study engineering. What kind of job do you imagine yourself doing 10, 20, 30 years hence?
• What does “an engineer” look like to you now compared with when you were say, 10 years old?
• What would make you leave the profession (or not enter it after graduation)?
• Are there examples of things that your school or university did well (or badly) to encourage you to study engineering?
• Why do engineers struggle with an “image problem” compared with the other professions? What can they do differently?
• What are the Government and the Opposition parties currently saying about engineering and engineers? Do you agree?
• Check out the professional and academic publications. What is their style of writing? What are they saying about this subject?