Abstract

Attracting Bright Young People to Engineering and Science Research

The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) has recently predicted that by 2020 there could be a shortage of 360,000 STEM graduates in the UK.

Shortages have also been forecast for the USA by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and it has been reported that China is seeking 25 million engineers by 2020.

This talk will describe the background to two international initiatives aimed at addressing this issue and increasing the world-wide supply of STEM graduates, especially engineers. The first is the Global Grand Challenges Summit that was devised by the RAE , the NAE and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and held for the first time in London in 2013.

The Summit grew out of the NAE ’s Grand Challenges for Engineering project that identified 14 grand challenges for engineering in 2008. The next Summit is to be hosted by the CAE in China in 2015.

The second initiative is the international £1 million Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, launched in 2011 by all three political parties in the UK and funded by the private sector. Her Majesty gave her name to the Prize, and presented it to the first winners in Buckingham Palace in June 2013.