The Rooke Award is one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s most prestigious prizes, recognising outstanding achievement in the public promotion of engineering by an individual or small team based in the UK. Recent winners include Dr Susan Scurlock MBE of Primary Engineer, British astronaut Major Tim Peake CMG and structural engineer, author and presenter Roma Agrawal MBE.
The Academy’s mission to create a world-leading and inclusive engineering workforce is championed across the UK and beyond. The Rooke Award celebrates teams and individuals who help bring engineering to life through public engagement, honouring them for their work in supporting the Academy's aims through inspiring future talent and diversity in engineering.
Chairing the Awards Committee for the Academy is an honour and it is a pleasure to hear about examples of engineering achievements across the UK. Celebrating engineering excellence remains at the heart of the Academy’s work and the annual awards recognise and reward the very best of our engineering talent. It is truly inspirational to see the huge impact engineers have on people and society every day and I would encourage readers to make nominations so details of these achievements can be shared and acknowledged.
The wide-reaching impact of previous winners
The Rooke Award is named after Past President of the Academy Sir Denis Rooke, one of the UK's most distinguished engineers. As Chairman of British Gas, he built the UK's gas distribution network and united the gas industry as his legacy to the nation, making domestic gas a cheap and convenient fuel source for millions of people.
After retirement, Sir Denis devoted his talent and determination to engineering education and drove the development of the Academy’s education programme, supporting young people engaged in the public promotion of engineering.
2020’s recipient Dr Susan Scurlock set up the not-for-profit Primary Engineer in 2005 in response to the government’s call to encourage more young people into the engineering profession. From a modest beginning with just 13 schools in the north of England, today the programme has a national footprint with an annual reach of over 1,700 schools, 90,000 pupils, 5,000 teachers and 2,000 engineers.
European Space Agency Astronaut Major Tim Peake won the Rooke Award in 2019 in recognition thePrincipia mission’s education outreach programme, which includes more than 30 projects. The Principia mission has engaged more than two million school children across approximately 10,000 schools. The award was presented at a special event hosted by the Science Museum in association with the Academy, where 400 children took part in a Q&A session with Tim.
Engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal was the 2017 recipient of the Rooke Award, in recognition of her tireless efforts to promote careers in the profession. Roma’s experience includes, in her own words, the design of 'the cool steel' at the top of the Shard. The direct impact of her work on young people was demonstrated in 2016 when students from the Arc Chamberlain inner-city academy in Birmingham voted to have their new building named after her.
Recipients of the Rooke Award are selected by the Academy’s Awards Committee. Anyone can nominate an individual or group and nominations should provide a statement of no more than 500 words describing the nominee's achievements. Find out more about the terms and conditions here.
Nominations are open now and will close at 4pm on Friday 26 February. For more information, please email Patrick Woodcock at [email protected]