This event was broadcast live on LinkedIn to help attract a broad and engaged audience.
The theme for this year’s In conversation with the 2022 MacRobert Award winner event was Blueprints for successful innovation - insights into transformative UK engineering.
We heard from leading experts behind some of the UK’s finest engineering success stories as they discussed their thoughts on the essential factors necessary for developing transformative and commercially viable innovations.
This panel discussion included former winners of the prestigious MacRobert Award for UK engineering innovation, looking at how the innovation ecosystem is interconnected. It also debated how the UK can create a hospitable environment for engineering and what some of the next revolutionary developments might be.
The MacRobert Award is the UK's longest-running and most prestigious national prize for engineering innovation. Originally founded by the MacRobert Trust, the Award is now presented and run by the Royal Academy of Engineering, with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers.
For further details, please contact Patrick Woodcock Fellowship & Awards Officer at the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Hannah Prevett
Hannah is the deputy business editor at The Times and writes predominantly for The Times Enterprise Network. Having started her career as a technology journalist, Hannah now specialises in writing about entrepreneurship and fast-growth businesses. She regularly hosts Times and Sunday Times events, including The Times CEO Summit, and is a contributor to Times Radio.
Professor Clive Buckberry FREng
Clive Buckberry is a proven innovator across several industries. He is currently Chief Engineer and Technical Officer for Quanta Dialysis Technologies which he co-founded in 2008, spinning the company out of IMI plc to develop a highly innovative compact haemodialysis machine based upon technology leveraged from an orange juice dispenser. Quanta’s dialysis system has been granted both CE and FDA approval, has raised more than $400m of VC funding, and is now routinely treating patients clinically in both the UK and US. Clive is a Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Physics and was winner of the prestigious MacRobert award for Quanta’s innovative dialysis system in 2022. He also holds an Honorary Professorship at Heriot-Watt University.
Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS
Professor Sir Richard Friend is at the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors. These have found significant applications in LEDs, solar cells and electronics, and he was in the winning team for the MacRobert Award in 2002 for Cambridge Display Technology. Sir Richard has been chair of the panel of judges for the MacRobert Award since 2020.
Noemie Turner
As VP for technology development and commercialisation in bp’s Innovation & Engineering, Noemie leads a global team focused on developing low carbon technologies to the point of deployment and commercialisation as well as leading bp’s technology licensing capability. Noemie is a Fellow of the IChemE with expertise leading growth in technology licensing, project management and technology scale-up.
Liz Upton
Liz is one of the co-founders of Raspberry Pi. The credit-card-sized device is the best-selling computer to come out of the UK. Raspberry Pi provides low-cost, high-performance computers that are used across industry, enterprise and by makers. It also provides outreach and education to help more people access computing and digital making, while developing free resources to help people learn about computing and how to make things with computers. Prior to co-founding Raspberry Pi Liz was an award-winning journalist, editor and blogger.