The MacRobert Award is the UK’s premier award for engineering and attracts a growing number of high-quality nominations that demonstrate the very best of UK engineering innovation. Now in its 56th year, the MacRobert Award judges have a tough job to select three worthy finalists and choose the overall winner.
In this new blog series, we get to know some of the people behind these decisions. What was their journey to becoming a MacRobert Award judge? What do they look for in a successful nomination? And what is it that inspires them about the future of engineering innovation in the UK?
Next up, we speak with Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng, an Academy Fellow and a MacRobert Award judge. Sir Anthony has held a number of leadership and board positions, such as Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security from 2015 to 2021, and currently as President of City St George’s, University of London. Sir Anthony has been a judge of the MacRobert Award Committee since 2023.
Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng
You’ve been on the MacRobert judging panel for one year. What made you accept the invitation to be a judge?
Reckless disregard for my to-do list and notoriously poor time management! On a more serious note, I really do enjoy working with the Academy and learning from other Fellows. There is a strong sense of professional community that I find enjoyable and hope to contribute to. I sat on and chaired the Ingenious Award panel for several years and really felt it was worthwhile.
I was asked to join the MacRobert judging panel by the previous chair Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS. Sir Richard and I have sat on a number of boards together, he is thoughtful, funny, and an incredible engineer. I was always going to say yes to a further opportunity to work together.
I have a computer science/ software engineering background, but now I spend a lot of my time in leadership roles. The opportunity to dig a bit deeper, to understand successful technical innovations, how they have come about and where they are going, allows me to exercise my engineering judgment and 'geek-out'.
The MacRobert Award has received many brilliant nominations connected to your specialist field. In your expert opinion, what makes a successful nomination?
The most important thing I learned in my first year on the judging panel is that there is no “formula” for innovation and hence, a successful nomination. It’s all about standing out from one another, having that extra “edge”. Looking at nominations, virtually all demonstrated imagination. Many of the teams showed great determination in advancing their innovation. Most were tackling important problems. A fair proportion used cutting-edge science and technology. However, a smaller group were able to show significant advance on the state-of-the art. The leading nominations had evidence of commercial traction. The very best could demonstrate the ability to disrupt markets.
The 2024 MacRobert Award winner Google DeepMind with their innovation GraphCast, was an outstanding nomination. The idea that weather forecasting, which has historically been this complex, multi-scale, physics problem, can now be tackled with AI and machine learning… I think the best term is 'shocking'. It suggests that a large variety of similar systems problems that need solving are within reach. The engineering skill and application that was required to make the approach work is also astonishing.
From your experience as a judge, what areas are growing in prominence and are there any innovation trends to look out for?
I could come up with some plausible innovation trends, or hot areas such as AI, Quantum, VR, Engineering Biology, but the fact that they are trends, makes them less exciting to me. I want to be surprised and often that will come from areas that I had discounted or thought were boring and static, but are then shown to be anything but.
Although the Award’s winners have come from a diverse range of disciplines and company sizes over the past 55 years, what do you think has been a common factor in the impressive submissions you’ve seen?
Great innovations almost inevitably come from diverse, multi-skilled teams with inspirational technical leadership. Great customers also make great innovations.
What has been some of the more memorable moments from your time on the Committee?
There are lots of memorable moments, but the moments that stick in my mind are the opportunities to learn new stuff! To be able to dedicate a judging visit day to learning about - say, offshore wind energy - is a fantastic privilege. (To learn more about the judging process and what it entails, read Chair of the MacRobert Award panel Dr Alison Vincent’s blog.)
The MacRobert Award has a proud history of celebrating ground-breaking technological innovation. What do you think has been the most significant engineering / technological innovation in your lifetime?
I am an internet baby – an obvious answer would be the internet communications protocols such as TCP / IP, which have enabled so much subsequent development. Perhaps a less obvious answer would be the relational database. This is a key technology that permits large amounts of data to be stored and complex queries to be answered. Its application has had an integral role in shaping my career.
I love my Mac, so the Apple Lisa - the first desktop computer with a graphic interface from 1983 - seems an age away but once I saw it, I knew it was the future. A shout out to the programming language Smalltalk-80 - very exciting and made me think differently about what computing could be.
What advice would you give to any potential future nominations of the MacRobert Award?
Though I need to understand the scientific and engineering basis of the innovation, chances are I am not an expert. The best nominations walk the line between excessive simplification on the one hand, and too much technical detail on the other. The best nominations also embed a narrative -they tell an impactful story.
Quick fire questions
If you were not an engineer, what would you be? A policeman!
Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?
I have been to the past... so I think I would like to go to the future. In any case I am a constitutional optimist.
Share something not many people know about you
I have a longstanding interest in martial arts.
Name the piece of technology that you cannot live without. My kindle.
Which three people would you invite to your dream dinner party?
A Friday evening with my family and John von Neumann, Alfred Wiener (my grandfather) and Golda Meir.
Submit your nomination for the MacRobert Award by 31 January, 2025. The 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.