The two winners of the inaugural Engineering Research Writer of the Year competition, organised by the Association of Engineering Doctorates, were announced at the AEngD conference in London on Tuesday 26 November.
The best ‘potential impact’ article was written by Laura Daniels of the Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE) centre at University of Reading, who looked at “Diesel generators and demand side management” [PDF].
Candidates, all current or recent EngD research engineers, had to write an 800-word article about their engineering research challenge. The finalists were invited to deliver a short presentation based on their paper at the AEngD annual conference, held at the Building Centre in central London. There are two categories: ‘Actual impact’ and ‘potential impact’, the latter recognising that research projects take time to deliver outcomes for their industry sponsors.
Articles in the ‘Actual impact’ category described tangible benefits actually delivered during and/or as a result of the researcher’s project. Those in the ‘Potential impact’ category mainly related to EngD projects still at an early stage, and explained how the project could deliver benefits.
Laura Daniels presented a technical subject in an open and accessible way, with little use of technical jargon, posing some intriguing questions and suggesting interesting directions for her research, for which the industry sponsor is retailer Marks & Spencer.
The runner up in the ‘Actual impact’ category was Marek Kubik, also from TSBE at University of Reading, who looked at wind turbines and power generation in his article entitled “The winds of change”.
The winners received cheques for £250 and specially commissioned trophies made out of recycled glass from beer bottles by Yorkshire-based Bottle Alley Glass. Well done Laura and Marek!