Nominations open for the MacRobert Award 2025 (United Kingdom)

Funding Information

• The MacRobert award honours the winning organisation with a gold medal, and the team members a cash prize of £50,000.

Application Requirements

• Please provide the name of the project or innovation being submitted / title of submission using no more than 10 words.
• Applications will be considered for engineering innovations in any area of engineering, applied science, technology or medicine.
• In the case of larger projects, it is specifically the innovative component that should be identified. This should have a substantial UK content.
• Since the primary criterion for the Award is innovation, care should be taken to differentiate between the content of this project and any background or prior work or any larger accomplishment of which this is a part.
• There is no need to provide any additional background material at this stage, however, please provide web links to any pages, videos or multimedia presentations that may be helpful to describe the innovation. Please note that, should the submission progress to the shortlist stage, additional information may then be requested.

Judging Criteria

• In considering applications for the MacRobert Award, the Judging Panel uses the following criteria:
  • Innovation (maximum 500 word summary)
  • Commercial success (maximum 250 word summary)
  • Benefit to society (maximum 250 word summary)
• All three criteria may be interpreted broadly to reflect the very diverse nature of engineering and its role in every aspect of society. The following notes may help to align the submission with these criteria.
  • Innovation
    • The most important task is to define as clearly as possible the specific innovation being claimed, identifying the benefits of the innovation to end users as well as its advantages over competitive solutions. The Judging Panel should not be asked to simply review a successful engineering / commercial development.
    • Among points that may be considered for inclusion in the submission are: How does the submission differ from previous solutions that have addressed the particular application involved? What are the particular technical or commercial advantages of the new approach? (These might include creating a new market, improved performance, design for economic manufacture, improved reliability, ease of maintenance etc.). Have patents, or any other external recognition, been granted for the innovative components of the project?
    • If other companies, universities, suppliers or partners have been involved in the project, explain how their role relates to the claimed innovation.
  • Commercial success
    • Evidence of commercial success must be provided. This must include numeric information on, for example, sales and/or installations, market penetration or customer usage. An indication should be given as to how the success is likely to be maintained.
    • The Judging Panel recognise that, for some organisations and submissions, commercial success may not be measurable in strictly financial terms. In these cases, the panel will wish to see evidence that the users at whom the innovation is aimed have fully embraced it within their applications and/or businesses. They will also expect to see that the scale of the success is commensurate with the scale of the innovation and the applications at which it is aimed. Examples include, but are not limited to:
      • a major funding round that supports the company through to significant sales
      • sale of licenses
      • significant sales/orders
      • other indicators of future commercial success, including take up and use of technology and software outside your company.
      • Please note that commercial success is not measured by how much money has been spent on, or invested in, the project.
  • Benefit to society
    • Benefit to society can arise in a number of different ways, according to the specifics of the innovation and the context within which it is deployed. Examples include, but are not limited to,
      • health and safety
      • national security
      • environmental improvement and sustainability
      • employment
      • exports
      • spin-off activity.
    • Please provide information on your company’s policies regarding diversity and inclusion, as well as corporate social responsibility. The Academy is committed to diversity, equality and inclusion in the engineering profession it is important that these subjects are addressed.

For more information, visit Royal Academy of Engineering.