Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation

The objective of the Queen Elizabeth Prize is to raise the public profile of engineering, and to inspire young people and engage them in engineering. It is run by a charitable company, limited by guarantee, called the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. The Foundation is chaired by Lord Browne of Madingley, whose fellow trustees are:

Sir Mark Walport, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, is an adviser to the Foundation.

The QEPrize is funded by donations from the following international companies: BAE Systems, BP, GSK, Jaguar Land Rover, National Grid, Nissan Motor Corporation, Shell, Siemens UK, Sony, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Toshiba.

The day-to-day running of the QEPrize is carried out by a team based at the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Nominations

The prize rewards an outstanding engineering-led advance that has produced tangible and widespread public benefit. This is judged on broad criteria, that includes the cultural impacts of the engineering. Nominations are encouraged from the public, from engineering and science academies, universities, research organisations and companies around the world. The only restriction is that self-nomination is not permitted, and that the prize not be awarded posthumously. Nominations can be made via an online portal on the QEPrize website.

Selection

A search group composed of eminent engineers sifts and develops the nominations before the judging process begins.

The judging panel works from the information provided in the nomination, comments from referees and any additional information required in order to establish which nomination most fully meets the prize criteria. The panel uses the following criteria to select the winning nominations:

1. What is it that this person has done (or up to five people have done) that is a ground-breaking innovation in engineering?
2. In what way has this innovation been of global benefit to humanity?
3. Is there anyone else who might claim to have had a pivotal role in this development?

Announcement

The winner(s) of the QEPrize are announced every two years by the Chairman of the QEPrize Foundation. In the first three prize cycles, this announcement was held at the Royal Academy of Engineering, and was attended by members of the Royal Family.

Awards Ceremony

The QEPrize awards ceremony takes place in the same year as the announcement, at Buckingham Palace. The QEPrize trophy, designed by the winner of the Create the Trophy competition, is presented to the QEPrize winner(s) by a member of the Royal Family. In the first three prize cycles, the trophy was presented by Her Majesty The Queen.

2017

On 1 February 2017, it was announced that the 2017 prize would be awarded to the four engineers responsible for the creation of digital imaging sensors. The announcement was made by Lord Browne of Madingley at the Royal Academy of Engineering, in the presence of HRH The Princess Royal.

The winners of the 2017 prize were:

Together, their innovations allowed for advancements in medical treatments, science, personal communications and entertainment. The winners will receive their award in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace later in 2017.

2015

The 2015 prize was awarded to Robert Langer of United States, for his work in controlled-release large molecule drug delivery. The announcement was made by Lord Browne of Madingley in the presence of HRH The Duke of York at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 3 February 2015. Dr Langer, who made a speech at the announcement, said he was “proud and privileged for winning the biggest engineering prize in the world”.

2013

The inaugural prize was awarded to a team of five engineers who created the Internet and the World Wide Web. The announcement was made by Lord Browne of Madingley in the presence of Princess Anne at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 18 March 2013. The winners of the 2013 prize were:

On Tuesday 25 June 2013 the winners received their award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in front of an audience that included the three leaders of the UK’s main political parties, Queen Elizabeth Prize judges and a number of young engineers at Buckingham Palace. On the same day, the Lord Mayor hosted a lunch at the Guildhall in honour of the winners attended by Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice.

Judging Panel

Key

QEPrize Global Engineering Ambassadors Network

The QEPrize Global Engineering Ambassadors Network is an international network of young engineers from both business and academic institutions. QEPrize Ambassadors act as evangelists for engineering, engaging with teachers, parents, school children, politicians and journalists about their work and why engineering is such an important profession.

The Ambassador Network became a global community in 2016.

Create the Trophy competition

Every two years, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering trophy is found through the ‘Create the Trophy’ competition. The competition gives young people the opportunity to get involved, testing their design skills using the latest in 3D-design technology. For the first time, the 2017 competition was open to entrants worldwide.

Entries are submitted online through a free app, which is free to download on all Android and Apple devices. The winning entry, designed by 15 year-old Samuel Bentley from Wales, will be 3D printed and presented to the 2017 QEPrize winners at Buckingham Palace later this year.

2017

The winner of the 2017 Create the Trophy competition was Samuel Bentley, 15, from Wales, whose design was inspired by the highest Welsh peak, Snowdon. It will be 3D printed by BAE Systems and presented to the 2017 QEPrize winners at Buckingham Palace later in 2017.

For the first time, entrants to the Create the Trophy competition in 2017 used the QEPrize 3D Design Studio mobile app to design their trophies. The competition was also opened up to a global audience, and received entries from 32 countries worldwide.

2015

The winner of the 2015 Create the Trophy competition was Euan Fairholm, a mechanical engineering student at The University of Glasgow. His design, "The Golden Crown", was developed into a final form by BAE Systems and presented to Dr Robert Langer, the winner of the 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Entries to the 2015 competition were submitted through an online design website.

2013

The inaugural Create the Trophy competition was won by 17-year-old student, Jennifer Leggett. The national competition called for students to come up with a design capturing the essence of modern engineering.

Jennifer Leggett's tree-like trophy design symbolises the growth of engineering and represents the way in which all areas of engineering are interlinked. After winning the competition Jennifer Leggett was invited to spend the day with designer Thomas Heatherwick before the design was finalised.

The 2013 trophy was constructed out of a 3D printed resin that has been dipped in Nickel alloy. The tree-like trophy has some polished and some brushed modules, while the base is sintered aluminium.

Entries to the 2013 competition were submitted through an online design website.

Create the Trophy Judging Panel

QEPrize 3D Design Studio

For the first time since the launch of Create the Trophy, the 2017 competition was opened up to submissions worldwide. It also marked the launch of the QEPrize 3D Design Studio, a bespoke app available for free download on all apple and android mobile and tablet devices.

The QEPrize 3D design studio is a 3D modelling tool, with a palate of 14 unique shapes and 5 different materials to choose from.

Inside the studio, designers can rotate, tilt and zoom into creations, adding blocks at the touch of a finger. Once the design is complete, trophies can be exported to the device’s photo gallery or shared directly to social media. An additional feature allows users to export the design as a 3D print-ready .OBJ file.