Engineering Matters
Episodes
#365 Making a Success in British Construction
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Wilkes has seen the highs and lows of running a small business in the UK construction sector. From being talked into staying with his apprentices...
#364b Environment Champion – Engineering Matters Awards gold winner
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we tell the story of MERMAID from the Wildlife Conservation Society, this year’s Engineering Matters Awards Environment Gold Champi...
#364a Environment Champion – Engineering Matters Awards shortlist
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, engineers are working to protect the environment. In this episode, we introduce eight companies who are taking steps to safeguard th...
#363 Uncrewed Vessels and Unprecedented Data
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In its seventh Allocation Round the UK executed the largest offshore wind auction in European history, putting pen to paper on 8.4GW of new capacity, ...
#362 Revisited: Skyscrapers, Predicting The Future
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The London skyline is undergoing perhaps its most significant transformation in decades as a new ‘vertical renaissance’ is sending tremors of exci...
#361 Revisited: Space – The Robotic Age
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Humanity’s furthest ever journey into space has been delayed. Again. An interruption to the flow of helium forced NASA to scrap the revised 6 March ...
#360 Systems Change: Thinking in Patterns
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Systems thinking allows engineers to understand complex systems and the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of their interventions. It avoids the a...
#359k Transit-Oriented Communities in Toronto
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, urban planners are seeking to deliver urban growth and increase access to city centres through the development of transit-oriented c...
#359j – Modern Vernacular in Saudi Arabia
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia, buoyed by a surge in oil prices, embarked on an ambitious building programme. The country moved rapidly to develop its cit...
#359i Stone as Structure
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For facade specialists, stone is highly prized for its performance and character. The right choice of stone can anchor a building in its local context...
#359h Sustainability in Paris
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Sustainability experts often use a hierarchy to help their thinking about interventions. The best way to limit your impact is to do nothing at all. If...
#359g An Intergenerational Approach to Sustainability
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lifecycle carbon assessment – the process of monitoring the total carbon footprint of a structure from the first spade in the ground to demolition –...
#359f Sustainability and Adaptation in East London
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Retrofitting is an instrumental step in reducing the carbon footprint of a city’s building stock. It also extends the life of a building and has a l...
#359e A Better View of Stadium Design
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When you are designing a stadium for the World Cup, or any major sport, it’s vital to have a fan’s-eye view. For more than a century, the architec...
#359d A Digital Path to Nuclear’s New Generation
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear power promises to provide energy when other sources can’t. But nuclear plants currently take a long time to build—often more than a decade...
#359c A Fusion of Minds at ITER
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At ITER, in France, scientists and engineers from around the world are working together to develop nuclear fusion at power plant scale. The project co...
#359b Water, Energy and the Environment in the Middle East
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There is a changing view of the environment among public sector clients in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has ambitious goals like generating 50% of el...
#359a Australia’s Most Flooded Town
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lismore sits at the confluence of two rivers in New South Wales. Covering more than 1,300 square kilometres, it is home to more than 44,000 people. In...
#359 Intro – A Sustainable and Resilient World
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Society needs to consider the impact of climate change on our cities because it is no longer a future challenge; it is a present reality. Cities with ...
#358 Experts in Risk
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Residents of tall buildings can face significant risks in the event of fire or structural failure. At Grenfell Tower in the UK, a fire in a resident’...
#357c Well-Grounded Decisions: Construction and Operations
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A wise asset owner builds on solid ground. Unless ground risks are clearly identified, projects can easily be delayed or delivered over budget. Some r...
#357b Well-Grounded Decisions: Design Development
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Without a clear understanding of ground conditions, unquantified risk can be transferred from project owner to lead contractors when a contract is sig...
#357a Well-Grounded Decisions: Site Selection
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On any project, uncertainty creates risk. Decisions that are made without a good understanding of site conditions can result in overengineering or thr...
#356 Making Space for Wastewater Treatment
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wastewater treatment is an overlooked lifesaver. While the medical advances of the last 100 years—penicillin, chemotherapy, and, more recently, mRNA...
#355 The Real Value of Nature
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Green-grey engineering combines nature-based solutions with traditional civil engineering. It can be used in flood protection, with mangroves acting a...
#354 AI in Infrastructure: Adoption and Guardrails
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The infrastructure sector is adopting AI with enthusiasm. A new whitepaper from Bentley Systems, Pinsent Masons, Turner & Townsend, and Mott Macdo...
#353 Carbon Assessment in a Time of Housebuilding
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, or EAC, released a report on environmental sustainability and housing growth. The UK...
#352 Health Monitoring for Offshore Wind
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From blood pressure monitors and smart watches, to MRIs and step counters, many of us make tracking health metrics part of our daily routine. Armed wi...
#351 Rough Seas and Reliable Defence Partnerships
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, climate change and shifting alliances are opening up new theatres of geopolitical competition. In the Arctic, Canada must be ready t...
#350 Living in Space: The Next Generation of Astronauts
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Meganne Christian is a scientist and adventurer. In her research, she has studied the performance of novel materials including the use of nanoscale...
#349 Never Again: Embedding Safety in Engineering
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in west London demanded new ways of thinking about professionalism and ethics in the engineering sector. However, si...
#348 Modelling Distributed Energy Storage
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Europe, and around the world, renewable electricity generation is being built at pace. However, these sources of energy create a new challenge: the...
#347 Revisited: The Pipeline to Net Zero
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, at the end of September 2025, a study by Regen, commissioned by the MCS Foundation, found that biomethane had a limited capacity to replace...
#346 Scaling Carbon-Free Cement
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a simple fact of chemistry that cement cannot be produced, without also producing carbon dioxide. But this does not mean that the sector—and ...
#345 Pinpoint Precision in Space Positioning
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When launching a satellite into orbit, getting the positioning right is of paramount importance. As humanity sends more satellites into space, the vas...
#344 Networks Under Water: Transport, Flooding and Resilience
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When flooding happens, damage and disruption ripples out across assets and infrastructure. Private businesses and homeowners can insure themselves aga...
#343 Weaving Software into Automation
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented the punch card as a means of inputting control data to one of the earliest automated technologies, the weavers’ loom....
#342 Real Solutions and the Industrial Metaverse
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The metaverse is often thought of as an alternative virtual space, a world separate from reality where we can hang out with avatars of our friends and...
#341 Opening the Door to Engineering – Engineering Matters Awards winners
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan Lusty founded adi Group, a multidisciplinary engineering business supporting major manufacturers. He is part of a group that offers engineering s...
#340 Diving Deep into Electric Machinery
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Electrification of construction equipment is an ongoing and necessary part of the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and restrict global warming...
#339 Integrated Contracts and Innovative Delivery
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On two major road projects in the UK work was completed on time and under budget. But not every project can claim such success. Defects, delays and co...
#338 Bio-Inspired Innovation & Systemic Sustainability
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nature has long served as a blueprint for engineering breakthroughs from the kingfisher-inspired design of Japan’s Bullet Train to termite mounds th...
#337 Breaking Barriers to STEM with Lightyear Foundation – Engineering Matters Awards winners
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we spotlight the remarkable work of the Lightyear Foundation, the winner of the Engineering Matters Awards 2025 Gold Champion for Div...
#336 Gravity-Powered Heavy Haul – Engineering Matters Awards winners
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At a quarry in Turkey, heavy haul trucks are carrying hundreds of tonnes of materials, with no external power. It’s not quite perpetual motion, but ...
#335 Monitoring Methane: The Tech Behind the Tech – Engineering Matters Awards winners
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
LongPath Technologies has taken Nobel-winning discoveries, and applied them to a key cause of climate change: methane leaks from oil and gas facilitie...
#334 Digital Construction’s Past, Present and Future
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2016 management consultants McKinsey released a report that reverberated around the construction and engineering sectors. This sector, the report s...
#333 Agents of Change – AI in Industry
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Generative AI has swept across our society. In every app, up it pops, eager to offer a helping hand. The opportunity to talk to computer systems as if...
#332 The Future of Airports Around the World
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Airports are at the forefront of a global transformation, rethinking their role not just as transport hubs but as sustainable, connected cities of the...
#331 Life Extension for Infrastructure
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second half of the 20th Century, the world was transformed through infrastructure construction. New roads and railways, levees and power lines,...
#330 A Village Full of Maths Tutors – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Helping the next generation achieve their full potential doesn’t just take commitment from their parents or carers, or from professionals like teach...
#329 Scaling Low Carbon Innovation – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Gibbons and his colleagues at Circular11 are developing ways to add value to hard-to-recycle light plastics. They take packaging, and turn it into...
#328 Listening for Leaks – Engineering Matters Awards Innovation Champion, FIDO
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Worldwide, water is in short supply and high demand, with very real consequences for human health and security. Many countries struggle to maintain ag...
#327 Nuclear Engineering for School Children – Engineering Matters Awards 2025
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the coast of rural Cumbria, in England’s northeast, a once-secretive nuclear site is transforming its legacy by investing in the engineers of tom...
#326 Revisited: The Green, Green, Shores of Home
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The past months have seen a shift in international trade, of a scale not seen for decades. New US tariffs have created uncertainty for investors, and ...
#325 Real world sustainability and the digital revolution
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The rise of AI and machine learning promises a revolution in how we live and work. Expert reasoning and mundane tasks will be completed for us in the ...
#324 A Shift of Power on Europe’s Borders
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This February, with the flick of a switch, there was a vast shift of power on Europe’s borders. The Baltic states’ electrical grids, built in the ...
#323 Engineers Deliver Impact: The Engineering Matters Awards 2025
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Engineers from around the world gathered at the Postal Museum in London for the Engineering Matters Awards 2025, presented in partnership with the Ins...
#322 Engineering Ecosystems: Italy’s Seagrass Meadows
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Seagrass meadows are the engineers of the marine ecosystem. They provide habitats, support biodiversity, prevent coastal erosion and sequester carbon ...
#321 Circular Construction – Designing for Disassembly
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We can reuse and retrofit buildings to extend their lifespans, and reduce their embodied carbon impact. But some structures may not be suitable for fu...
#320 International Year of Quantum: 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Quantum mechanics has transformed our understanding of reality, but how did we get here? In this episode, we celebrate the International Year of Quant...
#319 Revisited: Green Engineering, with Bison
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Britain’s biodiversity has been declining sharply over the last 50 years. The country is now one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. D...
#318 Gaming Out a Career in Nuclear
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At a unique hackathon in Manchester, a diverse group of hackers, coders, and gamers gathered to design digital solutions for the nuclear industry, ble...
#317 Human Factors, Human Error, and Safety by Design
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we search for causes of accidents, we often assume a binary: either mechanical failure, or human error, were to blame, and we must pick between t...
#316 What Can AI Engineers Learn From Medical Professionals?
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is evolving so fast it eludes definition. The potential impact of the field is barely understood, even by those working in it. ‘Move-fast-and-bre...
#315 Renewing the World, Without Costing the Planet
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How should engineers think about their duty to design safe structures? For IStructE’s head of climate action Will Arnold, this duty extends beyond t...
#314 Remote Operations, To the Moon and Back
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ten years ago, Fugro set out on an ambitious mission: to bring expert staff off of vessels, and into a purpose built remote operations centre, or ROC....
#313 Introducing: Mapping Italy’s Seagrass for Biodiversity Gain, from Planet Beyond
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has a 100 year history of mapping the world’s oceans. John Nyberg, technical director, explain...
#312 Lifting Each Other Up — Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, People
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do engineers build? Often, the answer will be bridges and dams, apartment blocks and factories.But in everything they do, engineers are also help...
#311 Transforming the World, and the Economy — Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 3
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the core of engineering and manufacturing, is the transformation of materials. A tree becomes a book. A stone is transformed into a concre...
#310 Manufacturing a Brighter Future – Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 2
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Across every sector, from manufacturing to transportation, energy to construction, the race toward a net zero future is reshaping how we work, produce...
#309 A Generation of Change – Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 1
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What links draught excluders and nuclear reactors? Or carbon capture and methane monitoring? As we enter a generation of change, these and other ideas...
#308 Building Bandwidth in the 1920s
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a world where data and connectivity are essential to almost everything we do. Cable and satellite connections add value to business through...
#307 Giving the Gift of Engineering
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For many of us, now is a season of giving. A well chosen gift can bring lasting joy. But it’s easy to get wrong. One of the finest gifts anyone can ...
#306 Revisited: Building Rothera Wharf
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we are returning to Rothera, in the Antarctic, where, in 2021 the British Antarctic Survey had just completed work on a project it has call...
#305 Making the Case for Nature-Based Solutions
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nature-based solutions are emerging as vital tools to tackle the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss by leveraging nature’s inhe...
#304 Grounded in Knowledge – Ireland’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the last Ice Age, glaciers scored huge trenches through the land beneath the Irish Sea. Today, those valleys are filled with softer material an...
#303 Gathering data at the speed of a train: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Health & Safety Gold Champion – Fugro RILA
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Monitoring and maintaining an entire rail network can be costly, slow and, for those working on the track, very dangerous. Specialised trains were dev...
#302 Conservation, Community and AI: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Community Gold Champion — iNaturalist
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From habitat destruction, to use of pesticides, the arrival of invasive species and the growing impact of climate change, life, in all shapes and size...
#301 Electrifying Sydney: Transformational Energy Systems
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1900s Sydney was transformed by its first electric lighting system, which was so bright compared to gas lamps it was hailed as “turning...
#300 Bonus: Powering Net Zero
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Governments and businesses around the world have made commitments to achieve Net Zero by the middle of the century. This will require engineering inno...
#299e Highways UK Live – A Legacy of Excellence
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Thames had been for thousands of years London’s main route to the sea. But it is also an obstacle. The last crossing east of London is the bridg...
#299d Highways UK Live – The Journey to Net Zero and Resilience
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
National Highways has adopted clear net zero targets: its own operations will be carbon free by 2030; those of contractors on its roads by 2040; and o...
#299c Highways UK Live – Next Generation Asset Management
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2024, National Highways completely closed parts of the M25, London’s orbital motorway. This blockage in the arterial system of the UK economy was...
#299b Highways UK Live – Roads Reimagined
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As an engineer, it is easy to think of roads as a challenge to be solved. Many of the innovations we will discuss in this mini-series will have a real...
#299a Highways UK Live – The Future of Highways – Mini-series Preview
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why should we be thinking about roads as a service, not just an engineering challenge? What does it mean for a road to be a computer wrapped in asphal...
#298 Making Everyone Welcome in Construction: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Diversity & Inclusion Gold Champion — EKFB
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We should all want to build workplaces where everyone feels safe and included. But how can we do that when we don’t know what everyone needs? How ca...
#297 Revisited: A Deep Dive Into the Past
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1985 diver Henri Cosquer discovered a submerged cave entrance in the Mediterranean near Marseilles. Exploring over the next six years he discovered...
#296 A Safer, Faster, Way to Build Offshore Wind
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The North Sea’s natural conditions, with shallow waters and strong winds, make it ideal for wind farms. But, these same factors pose challenges ...
#295 Decision Time for the Hydrogen Economy
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The first stable atom to form after the Big Bang was hydrogen. Transformed into other atoms through stellar nuclear fusion, it is the foundation of al...
#294 A View of the Future from Coire Glas
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Coire Glas, in the remote Scottish Highlands, geologists and engineers are developing a vision of Scotland’s energy future. SSE Renewables plans ...
#293 Cleaning clothes and changing lives: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Community Gold Champion — The Washing Machine Project
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For 70% of the world’s population, doing the laundry means hours of difficult manual washing. It was this fact that led Nav Sawhney to leave his job...
#292 Place is the Space for Growth
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How should local and regional leaders encourage investment in their communities? Around the world, cities struggle with a legacy of industrial decline...
#291 Making the Case for Cutting Carbon
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Project managers have traditionally measured the viability of a project design or materials choice as a triangle, balancing cost, scope and performanc...
#290 Racing for Innovation: Inside Formula Student
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Formula Student is Europe’s top educational motorsport competition, with students and teams from all over the world coming to compete. The competiti...
#289 Bringing lean production to agriculture: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Sustainability Gold Champions — Intelligent Growth Solutions
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lean production techniques have become common across heavy industry. They cut resource use, and promote quality assurance. They were inspired by shelf...
#288 Counting carbon costs of the world’s infrastructure: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Gold Champion – Whole Life Carbon Assessment, 2nd edition
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We can only efficiently reduce those things that we can measure. The Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard, produced by the Royal Institution of Chart...
#287 Engineers Without Borders: The Design Challenge
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Engineers Without Borders UK People Design Challenge is a year long challenge that is part of many UK engineering students’ degrees. For thi...
#286 AI In the Real World
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With the launch of robot taxis, we are already seeing autonomously controlled devices operating alongside humans in the public realm. As AI improves i...
Bonus: Engineering a Low Carbon Paris Olympics
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to win at the Olympics? For Pierre Engel, chief engineer at ArcelorMittal, victory took years of experience, precision, and collabor...
#285 Delivering the Floating Offshore Wind Revolution
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The UK is a global leader when it comes to the development of offshore wind energy. Despite past government bans on onshore wind development, the UK w...