The Academy has many well-established prizes and distinctions, including Fellowship of the Academy, for recognising excellence in engineering. However, there are some examples of excellence that are so unusual that a different approach is needed to recognise them.
His Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC)
As the home of national security engineering, HMGCC, based at Hanslope Park near Milton Keynes, works on all the latest technological challenges, from cyber security and AI to creating tech to help with intelligence gathering or secure communications in often dangerous or hostile locations.
HMGCC was founded in 1938 as a specialist organisation for overseas wireless communications. Its remit was to set up a secure communications capability with overseas outposts in the event of war with Germany. The legendary mathematician Alan Turing lived and worked at Hanslope Park in the latter part of the war - creating a new encryption device called Delilah and testing it out for visitors by playing a record of Churchill’s speeches through it.
The first concealed radio transmitter was developed at HMGCC and a later version, small enough to be hidden in a diplomatic bag, was used on 1 September 1939, from the UK embassy in Warsaw, to inform the UK Government that German troops had crossed the Polish border.
By 1945 the organisation had some 7,000 staff with a wide variety of skills, including a production factory enabling the design and manufacture of bespoke equipment needed throughout the war.
To this day, HMGCC continues to play a vital role in national security and strives to attract the most brilliant minds. While much of its work is highly classified, the recent HMGCC Co-Creation initiative has enabled it to open its doors more widely to external industry and academia, inviting them to participate in working on national security challenges.