The MacRobert Award is the UK’s premier award for engineering and attracts a number of high-quality nominations that demonstrate the very best of UK engineering innovation. The judges have now completed their longlist site visits and after much deliberation, have chosen their three finalists for 2025. Stay tuned – the finalists will be revealed in June!
For our latest blog, we spoke to Dr R V Ahilan FREng, Chief Energy Transition Officer at ABL Group. Ahilan has been a MacRobert Award judge since 2022 and has a specialist background in offshore wind, hydrodynamics, marine operations and renewable energy. Here, he shares his journey as a judge and some tips for a successful nomination.
You’ve been on the MacRobert Judging Committee for a number of years. What made you accept the invitation to be a judge?
Dr R V Ahilan FREng
When I got the letter of invitation to join the Committee, I had no hesitation in accepting because as an engineer in industry, I have always admired innovation that achieves commercial success. Being a MacRobert Award judge gives me a chance to recognise the extraordinary teams that achieve this along with societal benefit to boot.
The MacRobert Award has received many brilliant nominations connected to your specialist field. In your expert opinion, what makes a successful nomination?
The most successful nominations are able to describe the innovation elegantly. I want to be able to understand where the edge of knowledge was before and how much further the innovation has moved it on. The submission ought to be able to explain that as simply as possible so that even a layperson can appreciate the leap that has been made.
One of my most enjoyable finalist visits was to to evaluate their GraphCast model, which sought to produce fast and accurate weather forecasts. Doing this with physics is one of the hardest things humanity can do – remember the winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2021? They won for “the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming”. For GraphCast to succeed in surpassing these forecasts in both speed and accuracy using AI/ Machine Learning was truly stupendous. Having spent a good proportion of my life on offshore marine operations that are so dependent on weather forecast reliability, it was great to see the “step change” coming from Google Deepmind. This is the calibre of outstanding innovation the judges are looking for.
The MacRobert Award judges recently decided upon the three finalists for the 2025 MacRobert Award. Is there any common threads or hints you can give us about this years cohort, ahead of the June announcement?
All three have focused innovators with huge self-belief as well as the ability to inspire teams to drive the original inspiration to significant commercial success. Crucially, they are either already deploying advances in AI or indeed helping to advance the infrastructure for AI (perhaps in ways which are unexpected!)
From your experience as a judge, what areas are growing in prominence and are there any innovation trends to look out for?
AI/Machine Learning may be the easy answer, but I am noticing the powerful response from the smartest people to the climate change challenge in many of the innovations - in energy storage, in new materials and efficiency. It is time we transformed society from inefficient conversion of primary energy to useful energy by “burning and turning” to electrification. That requires major innovation.
What has been some of the more memorable moments from your time on the Committee?
Visiting and meeting the shortlisted candidates. The passion and determination normally enthuses you to look at the nominations and almost always teaches you something new. The insights you get from other judges are also priceless. One of the most memorable was a nomination, which through better modelling could reduce material usage in an already designed item (I am coy about this because I want them to submit a nomination again. They will know what I mean). In an era of waste, I thought their approach was elegant.
The MacRobert Award has a proud history of celebrating groundbreaking technological innovation. What do you think has been the most significant engineering / technological innovation in your lifetime?
Satellite navigation. The fact that we can “crowd source” where the traffic is and find optimum ways to navigate dynamically through the fastest route impacts everyone.
What advice would you give to any potential future nominations of the MacRobert Award?
Make sure you are clear about the innovation - and how it is significantly different from what is being used at present. It is also important to be able to demonstrate traction by rapid growth commercially and provide evidence of a “wow” factor (either technically or within its contribution to societal benefits).
Quick fire questions
If you were not an engineer, what would you be? Commentator on Test Match Special.
Would you rather travel to the past or to the future? The future - having seen how things changed even in my own lifetime, I am curious about how dramatically different the world would be for future generations and whether we really progress.
Name the piece of technology that you cannot live without
My car.
Which three people would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and my wife. A great evening with science, politics, pacifism, reason and humanity. My wife being a doctor will ensure that we will all be practical and grounded in reality!
Submissions for the 2025 MacRobert Award are currently closed. We will reopen for nominations this autumn for the 2026 MacRobert Award. This year's winner will be announced in July at the Academy's annual Awards Dinner.
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. Each year the winning team receives a gold medal, widespread publicity, a £50,000 prize and an exclusive weekend away at Douneside House.
Please contact Patrick Woodcock, MacRobert Award manager, on 02077 660 630 or [email protected] should you wish to discuss putting forward a nomination in the future.