Engineering Matters

#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...

#284 Queensway Tunnel: The Miracle Under the Mersey

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When the Queensway Tunnel opened on 18th July 1934 King George V declared it a miracle. At 3.4km long and with a 13.4m internal diameter it was the wo...

#283 Power, without the power brick: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Gold Champion AmberSemi

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In every home, ancient technologies lurk, threatening fire and ruin. While many devices—lights, TVs, and hard drives, for example—have adopted sol...

#282 Spinning up the renewables revolution: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Gold Champion — Dumarey

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can an ancient technology help spin up the renewables revolution? Dumarey—formerly Punch—Flybrid is doing just that, with its flywheel-based techn...

#281 A rocket in the high street: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Inclusion Gold Champion — Space for Everyone

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The adventures of astronauts have inspired the dreams of many young people. But once those dreams collide with the reality of years of demanding train...

#280 Measuring carbon in materials and projects: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Champion — BCIS Built Environment Carbon Database

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We delve into the critical role of the built environment in addressing the climate emergency, and how our Engineering Matters Awards Net Zero champion...

#279 Intersection, Identity, and Engineering

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The concept of intersection has given society a new way to understand identity. It has profound implications for how we understand ourselves and other...

#278 Capturing carbon with concrete: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Innovation Gold Champion Seratech

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Around the world, 8% of CO2 emissions come from the production of concrete, and 90% of those emissions come from the production of cement. This episod...

#277 The Race to Net Zero – Innovation at Pace

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The race to hit Net Zero targets will require an unprecedented surge in innovation. As Dame Laura Sandys, CBE, explains, energy systems will be reshap...

#276 A Deep Understanding of the Ground Beneath Our Feet

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cone Penetration Testing is a conceptually simple technology first developed in the Netherlands almost a century ago, but is still a critical componen...

#275 Serving Countries to Serving Communities

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For any military operation the objectives of the mission are absolutely paramount. Failure is not an option. The team is motivated to achieve a common...

#274 Seeing the Future of a City

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dar es Salaam is one of the world’s fastest growing cities. In the 1970s, it was home to less than one million people. Today, it has a population of...

#273 The Core Technologies of a New Power System

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we delve into the dynamic world of Power Electronics, Machines, and Drives (PEMD), exploring its pivotal role in shaping the future o...

#272 Designing Dinorwig: Inside Electric Mountain

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In late 1973 the UK’s Central Electricity Generating Board gained parliamentary approval to build the largest and most difficult pumped storage hydr...

#271 Pumped Storage: Australia tackles Intermittency

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the receiving end of among of the worst natural disasters in modern history, while being blessed with some of the most abundant natural resource re...

#270 A Blueprint for Low Carbon Roads

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK, over a quarter of a million kilometers of road have been laid. From motorways and A-roads to small country lanes, every kilometer of constr...

#269 The Pipeline to Net Zero

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It will be just as important to upgrade pipeline networks for the energy transition, as it is the electric grid. These will carry carbon dioxide and h...

Learning Legacy Podcast – Episode 5: How to Swim in a Sea of Data

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

HS2 is one of the most complex and challenging railway scheme the UK has ever undertaken. As such, it has been generating vast amounts of data across ...

Learning Legacy Podcast – Episode 4: Being Safe and Inclusive Every Step of the Way

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

HS2 is focused not only on safety, but on overall health and wellbeing on all employees and contractors. Identifying long term risks to wellbeing is a...

Learning Legacy Podcast – Episode 3: Reducing and Reusing

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

HS2’s place within the current climate and environment has always been its top priority. Once operational, the British-built bullet trains will prov...

Learning Legacy Podcast – Episode 2: The Blueprint and the Real Thing

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Design not only encapsulates the creativity and innovation of new products, but is the main source of information for construction to take place.&nbsp...