Grants support PR for engineering

A Royal Academy of Engineering product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 18, 2007

The Royal Academy of Engineering is making 15 grants totalling GBP 346,090 to projects designed to promote public engagement with engineering.

Engineers will soon be taking solar-powered showers in the street to interest people in new eco-technologies thanks to an Ingenious grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The Bradford-based Saving the Planet Roadshow has won over GBP 28,000 as one of the academy's first round of awards to promote public engagement with engineering.

The academy is making 15 grants totalling GBP 346,090 to public engagement projects all over the UK.

The successful proposals range from using specially engineered art installations at the Dana Centre to stimulate discussion of the five senses to a Y Touring Theatre Company production to get teenagers and engineers to debate issues of privacy and surveillance.

Glasgow University's Chips with Flair project will showcase images of the unseen and often beautiful electrical circuits in everyday objects like mobile phones.

Jodrell Bank Observatory will play host to a series of spectacular images, developed by artist Jem Finer working with expert engineers, projected onto the iconic Lovell telescope.

These events will commemorate the 50th anniversary both of the dawn of the space age and of the telescope itself.

The By Design group will use their grant to present a series of schools lectures given jointly by an engineer together with an Olympic athlete to debate the impact and ethical implications of the latest technological developments in sporting equipment and environment.

Meanwhile the Mikron Theatre Company's production "Married to the job" will bring the work of Thomas Telford to life and debate who might be a modern equivalent.

"Engaging the public with engineering, and engineers with the public, is a key aim of the Academy's Ingenious programme", says Martin Earwicker, Chairman of the Ingenious grants panel and Director of the Science Museum.

"The Ingenious Panel members were delighted by the high quality, originality and geographical spread of the bids.

I am confident that the successful projects will be very effective in creating debate between professional engineers and the wider public".

"People have taken the great Victorian engineers to their hearts - partly because they pioneered big, dramatic projects.

"But we want to see contemporary engineers engaging in real discussion about the 21st century engineering challenges they are addressing".

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