Shows / Engineering Matters
Engineering Matters
Five times winner of the Publisher Podcast Awards, including Best Technology Podcast, Engineering Matters celebrates the work of engineers who use ingenuity, practicality, science, theory and determination to build a better world. In the UK alone 5.7million people work in engineering related enterprises from manufacturing and agriculture to construction and transportation. Their work ensures that the country has sustainable power supplies, better connectivity between cities, increasing…
Episodes
- Engineering Matters
#333 Agents of Change – AI in Industry
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 they are…
- Engineering Matters
#332 The Future of Airports Around the World
Airports are at the forefront of a global transformation, rethinking their role not just as transport hubs but as sustainable, connected cities of the future…
- Engineering Matters
#331 Life Extension for Infrastructure
In the second half of the 20th Century, the world was transformed through infrastructure construction. New roads and railways, levees and power lines…
- Engineering Matters
#330 A Village Full of Maths Tutors – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
Helping the next generation achieve their full potential doesn’t just take commitment from their parents or carers, or from professionals like teachers. It…
- Engineering Matters
#329 Scaling Low Carbon Innovation – Engineering Matters Awards’ winners
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 a…
- Engineering Matters
#328 Listening for Leaks – Engineering Matters Awards Innovation Champion, FIDO
Worldwide, water is in short supply and high demand, with very real consequences for human health and security. Many countries struggle to maintain aging…
- Engineering Matters
#327 Nuclear Engineering for School Children – Engineering Matters Awards 2025
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 tomorrow…
- Engineering Matters
#326 Revisited: The Green, Green, Shores of Home
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 promise…
- Engineering Matters
#325 Real world sustainability and the digital revolution
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 cloud…
- Engineering Matters
#324 A Shift of Power on Europe’s Borders
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 1960s while…
- Engineering Matters
#323 Engineers Deliver Impact: The Engineering Matters Awards 2025
Engineers from around the world gathered at the Postal Museum in London for the Engineering Matters Awards 2025, presented in partnership with the Institution…
- Engineering Matters
#322 Engineering Ecosystems: Italy’s Seagrass Meadows
Seagrass meadows are the engineers of the marine ecosystem. They provide habitats, support biodiversity, prevent coastal erosion and sequester carbon dioxide…
- Engineering Matters
#321 Circular Construction – Designing for Disassembly
We can reuse and retrofit buildings to extend their lifespans, and reduce their embodied carbon impact. But some structures may not be suitable for full reuse…
- Engineering Matters
#320 International Year of Quantum: 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics has transformed our understanding of reality, but how did we get here? In this episode, we celebrate the International Year of Quantum…
- Engineering Matters
#319 Revisited: Green Engineering, with Bison
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. Despite…
- Engineering Matters
#318 Gaming Out a Career in Nuclear
At a unique hackathon in Manchester, a diverse group of hackers, coders, and gamers gathered to design digital solutions for the nuclear industry, blending…
- Engineering Matters
#317 Human Factors, Human Error, and Safety by Design
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 them. But…
- Engineering Matters
#316 What Can AI Engineers Learn From Medical Professionals?
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-break-things’…
- Engineering Matters
#315 Renewing the World, Without Costing the Planet
How should engineers think about their duty to design safe structures? For IStructE’s head of climate action Will Arnold, this duty extends beyond the…
- Engineering Matters
#314 Remote Operations, To the Moon and Back
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. The…
- Engineering Matters
#313 Introducing: Mapping Italy’s Seagrass for Biodiversity Gain, from Planet Beyond
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has a 100 year history of mapping the world’s oceans. John Nyberg, technical director, explains how the…
- Engineering Matters
#312 Lifting Each Other Up — Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, People
What do engineers build? Often, the answer will be bridges and dams, apartment blocks and factories. But in everything they do, engineers are also helping to…
- Engineering Matters
#311 Transforming the World, and the Economy — Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 3
At the core of engineering and manufacturing, is the transformation of materials. A tree becomes a book. A stone is transformed into a concrete bridge, rocks…
- Engineering Matters
#310 Manufacturing a Brighter Future – Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 2
Across every sector, from manufacturing to transportation, energy to construction, the race toward a net zero future is reshaping how we work, produce, and…
- Engineering Matters
#309 A Generation of Change – Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 1
What links draught excluders and nuclear reactors? Or carbon capture and methane monitoring? As we enter a generation of change, these and other ideas will be…
- Engineering Matters
#308 Building Bandwidth in the 1920s
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 trade…
- Engineering Matters
#307 Giving the Gift of Engineering
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 give, is…
- Engineering Matters
#306 Revisited: Building Rothera Wharf
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 called ‘the…
- Engineering Matters
#305 Making the Case for Nature-Based Solutions
Nature-based solutions are emerging as vital tools to tackle the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss by leveraging nature’s inherent resilience…
- Engineering Matters
#304 Grounded in Knowledge – Ireland’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm
During the last Ice Age, glaciers scored huge trenches through the land beneath the Irish Sea. Today, those valleys are filled with softer material and sit…
- Engineering Matters
#303 Gathering data at the speed of a train: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Health & Safety Gold Champion – Fugro RILA
Monitoring and maintaining an entire rail network can be costly, slow and, for those working on the track, very dangerous. Specialised trains were developed…
- Engineering Matters
#302 Conservation, Community and AI: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Community Gold Champion — iNaturalist
From habitat destruction, to use of pesticides, the arrival of invasive species and the growing impact of climate change, life, in all shapes and sizes, is…
- Engineering Matters
#301 Electrifying Sydney: Transformational Energy Systems
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 night into…
- Engineering Matters
#300 Bonus: Powering Net Zero
Governments and businesses around the world have made commitments to achieve Net Zero by the middle of the century. This will require engineering innovation…
- Engineering Matters
#299e Highways UK Live – A Legacy of Excellence
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 bridge and…
- Engineering Matters
#299d Highways UK Live – The Journey to Net Zero and Resilience
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 of road…
- Engineering Matters
#299c Highways UK Live – Next Generation Asset Management
In 2024, National Highways completely closed parts of the M25, London’s orbital motorway. This blockage in the arterial system of the UK economy wasn’t a…
- Engineering Matters
#299b Highways UK Live – Roads Reimagined
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 impact…
- Engineering Matters
#299a Highways UK Live – The Future of Highways – Mini-series Preview
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 asphalt? How…
- Engineering Matters
#298 Making Everyone Welcome in Construction: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Diversity & Inclusion Gold Champion — EKFB
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 can we make…
- Engineering Matters
#297 Revisited: A Deep Dive Into the Past
In 1985 diver Henri Cosquer discovered a submerged cave entrance in the Mediterranean near Marseilles. Exploring over the next six years he discovered a…
- Engineering Matters
#296 A Safer, Faster, Way to Build Offshore Wind
The North Sea’s natural conditions, with shallow waters and strong winds, make it ideal for wind farms. But, these same factors pose challenges for…
- Engineering Matters
#295 Decision Time for the Hydrogen Economy
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 all matter…
- Engineering Matters
#294 A View of the Future from Coire Glas
On Coire Glas, in the remote Scottish Highlands, geologists and engineers are developing a vision of Scotland’s energy future. SSE Renewables plans the first…
- Engineering Matters
#293 Cleaning clothes and changing lives: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Community Gold Champion — The Washing Machine Project
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 as a…
- Engineering Matters
#292 Place is the Space for Growth
How should local and regional leaders encourage investment in their communities? Around the world, cities struggle with a legacy of industrial decline. In…
- Engineering Matters
#291 Making the Case for Cutting Carbon
Project managers have traditionally measured the viability of a project design or materials choice as a triangle, balancing cost, scope and performance. With…
- Engineering Matters
#290 Racing for Innovation: Inside Formula Student
Formula Student is Europe’s top educational motorsport competition, with students and teams from all over the world coming to compete. The competition is…
- Engineering Matters
#289 Bringing lean production to agriculture: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Sustainability Gold Champions — Intelligent Growth Solutions
Lean production techniques have become common across heavy industry. They cut resource use, and promote quality assurance. They were inspired by shelf stocking…
- Engineering Matters
#288 Counting carbon costs of the world’s infrastructure: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Gold Champion – Whole Life Carbon Assessment, 2nd edition
We can only efficiently reduce those things that we can measure. The Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard, produced by the Royal Institution of Chartered…
- Engineering Matters
#287 Engineers Without Borders: The Design Challenge
The Engineers Without Borders UK People Design Challenge is a year long challenge that is part of many UK engineering students’ degrees. For this episode we…
- Engineering Matters
#286 AI In the Real World
With the launch of robot taxis, we are already seeing autonomously controlled devices operating alongside humans in the public realm. As AI improves it will…
- Engineering Matters
Bonus: Engineering a Low Carbon Paris Olympics
What does it take to win at the Olympics? For Pierre Engel, chief engineer at ArcelorMittal, victory took years of experience, precision, and collaboration. He…
- Engineering Matters
#285 Delivering the Floating Offshore Wind Revolution
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 was able…
- Engineering Matters
#284 Queensway Tunnel: The Miracle Under the Mersey
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 world’s…
- Engineering Matters
#283 Power, without the power brick: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Gold Champion AmberSemi
In every home, ancient technologies lurk, threatening fire and ruin. While many devices—lights, TVs, and hard drives, for example—have adopted solid state…
- Engineering Matters
#282 Spinning up the renewables revolution: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Gold Champion — Dumarey
Can an ancient technology help spin up the renewables revolution? Dumarey—formerly Punch—Flybrid is doing just that, with its flywheel-based technology. In…
- Engineering Matters
#281 A rocket in the high street: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Inclusion Gold Champion — Space for Everyone
The adventures of astronauts have inspired the dreams of many young people. But once those dreams collide with the reality of years of demanding training and…
- Engineering Matters
#280 Measuring carbon in materials and projects: Engineering Matters Awards 2024 Net Zero Champion — BCIS Built Environment Carbon Database
We delve into the critical role of the built environment in addressing the climate emergency, and how our Engineering Matters Awards Net Zero champion the…
- Engineering Matters
#279 Intersection, Identity, and Engineering
The concept of intersection has given society a new way to understand identity. It has profound implications for how we understand ourselves and others in our…