The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with State (polity), state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...

, who became the first senior

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

and remained so until his death. The Fellowship was incorporated and granted a

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...

on 17 May 1983 and became the Royal Academy of Engineering on 16 March 1992. It is governed according to the charter and associated statutes and regulations (as amended from time to time).

History

Conceived in the late 1960s, during the Apollo space program and Harold Wilson's espousal of "

white heat of technology James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

", the Fellowship of Engineering was born in the year of

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

's first commercial flight. The Fellowship's first meeting, at Buckingham Palace on 11 June 1976, enrolled 126 of the UK's leading engineers. The first fellows included Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, the jet engine developer, the structural engineer Sir Ove Arup,

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...

pioneer Sir George G. MacFarlane, the inventor of the

bouncing bomb A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-deter ...

Sir Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

, and father of the UK computer industry Sir Maurice Wilkes. The Fellowship's first president, Christopher Hinton, had driven the UK's supremacy in

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...

. The Fellowship focused on championing excellence in all fields of engineering. Activities began in earnest in the mid-1970s with the Distinction lecture series, now known as the Hinton lectures. The Fellowship was asked to advise the Department of Industry for the first time, and the Academy became host and presenter of the

MacRobert Award The MacRobert Award is regarded as the leading prize recognising UK innovation in engineering by corporations. 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 ...

. In the 1980s, the Fellowship received its own royal charter along with its first government

grant-in-aid A grant-in-aid is money coming from a central government for a specific project. Such funding is usually used when the government and the legislature decide that the recipient should be publicly funded but operate with reasonable independence ...

. At the same time it also received significant industrial funding, initiated its research programme to build bridges between academia and industry and opened its doors to international and honorary fellows. In 1990, the Academy launched its first major initiative in education, Engineering Education Continuum, which evolved into the BEST Programme and Shape the Future and Tomorrow's Engineers. The Academy's increasing level of influence – in policy, research and education – was recognized when it was granted a royal title and became The Royal Academy of Engineering in 1992. The Academy's current logo is inspired by the Neolithic

hand axe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or ch ...

, humans' first technological advance, which was taken to be a symbol appropriate to the Academy, supposedly representative of the ever-changing relationship between humanity and technology.

Location

The Academy's premises, 3–4

Carlton House Terrace Carlton House Terrace is a street in the St James's district of the City of Westminster in London. Its principal architectural feature is a pair of terraces of white stucco-faced houses on the south side of the street overlooking St. James's Pa ...

, are in a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

overlooking

St James's Park St James's Park is a park in the City of Westminster, central London. It is at the southernmost tip of the St James's area, which was named after a leper hospital dedicated to St James the Less. It is the most easterly of a near-continuous ch ...

, designed by architect John Nash and owned by the

Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priv ...

. The Academy shares the Terrace with two of its sister academies, the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

and the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

as well as other institutes. The building was renamed Prince Philip House, after renovation works were completed in 2012.

Activities

The Academy is instrumental in two policy alliances set up in 2009 to provide coherent advice on

engineering education Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...

and policy across the profession: Education for Engineering and ''Engineering the Future''. The Academy is one of four agencies that receive funding from the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for activities that support government policy on public understanding of science and engineering. As part of its programme to communicate the benefits and value of engineering to society, the Academy publishes a quarterly magazine, ''Ingenia'

The Academy says that ''Ingenia'' is written for a non-specialist audience and is "aimed at all those with an interest in engineering, whether working in business and industry, government, academia or the financial community". The Academy also makes ''Ingenia'' available to A-Level students in 3,000 schools in the UK.

Presidents

The president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the elected officer of the Academy, presides over meetings of the council. The president is elected for a single term of not more than five years.

Fellows

The Fellowship currently includes over 1,500 engineers from all sectors and disciplines of engineering. The fellows, distinguished by the title Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering and the

post-nominal Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, academic degree, accreditation, ...

designation FREng, lead, guide and contribute to the Academy's work and provide expertise. The Royal Fellows of the Academy are the

duke of Kent Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edwar ...

and the

princess royal Princess Royal is a style customarily (but not automatically) awarded by a British monarch to their eldest daughter. Although purely honorary, it is the highest honour that may be given to a female member of the royal family. There have been se ...

Diversity

The Academy strives to ensure that the pool of candidates for election to the Fellowship better reflects the diverse make-up of society as a whole. It set up the Proactive Membership Committee in 2008 to identify and support the nomination of candidates from underrepresented areas, with the aim of boosting the number of women candidates, engineers from industry and small and medium enterprises, those from emerging technologies and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Awards and prizes

* With the support of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, the Academy manages the annual Royal Academy of Engineering

, the premier prize for UK innovation in engineering. First presented in 1969, the award honors the winning company with a gold medal and the team members with a prize of £50,000. * The Academy oversees the awarding of the

Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, also known as the QEPrize, is a global prize for engineering and innovation. The prize was launched in 2012 by a cross-party group consisting of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Ed Miliband, then Prime M ...

(QEPrize). The QEPrize is an international, £1 million engineering prize that "rewards and celebrates the engineers responsible for a ground-breaking innovation that has been of global benefit to humanity". The objective of the prize is to "raise the public profile of engineering and to inspire young people to become engineers". * The Academy's Sir George Macfarlane Medal is an annual award that "recognizes a UK engineer who has demonstrated excellence in the early stage of their career". * The President's Medal * The

Prince Philip Medal The Prince Philip Medal is named after Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was the Senior Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE). In 1989 Prince Philip agreed to the commissioning of solid gold medals to be "awarded periodically to ...

, named after

, and "awarded periodically to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering as a whole through practice, management or education." * Chair in Emerging Technologies, a scheme providing long-term support to visionary researchers in developing technologies with high potential to deliver economic and social benefit to the United Kingdom.

References

{{authority control Scientific organizations established in 1976 Engineering societies based in the United Kingdom

1976 establishments in the United Kingdom Organisations based in the City of Westminster