Engineering Matters

10 Episodes
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By: Reby Media

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 efficiency in production processes; advanced manufacturing methods; and is embracing the digital transformations that include virtual modelling of our environment, and development of intelligent machines. Our episodes will examine the vital work of engineers...

#316 What Can AI Engineers Learn From Medical Professionals?
Last Thursday at 3:26 PM

AI is evolving so fast it eludes definition. The potential impact of the field is barely understood, even by those working in it. ā€˜Move-fast-and-break-thingsā€™ practitioners are deploying AI systems in autonomous vehicles, in courts, in medical diagnosis, and now even at the heart of the US federal government.Ā 

Few of the constraints that govern individual and corporate behaviour are being applied to the field. Large corporations are shaping the sector faster than governments can act. In a society where few have a useful understanding of the technology, neither market signals or social norms can steer how good AI sy...


#315 Renewing the World, Without Costing the Planet
02/06/2025

How should engineers think about their duty to design safe structures? For IStructEā€™s head of climate action Will Arnold, this duty extends beyond the structure, to the safety of everyone on the planet. With renewable energy cutting operational carbon emissions, the majority of the engineering sectorā€™s impact on climate change now comes from embodied carbon.

Today, the World Health Organisation estimates that 150,000 excess deaths each year are caused by climate change. Embodied carbon from construction accounts for 10% of climate changing emissions. Around 15,000 deaths each year could be attributed to poor design that does not consider thes...


#314 Remote Operations, To the Moon and Back
01/30/2025

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 first of these ROCs, in Houston, now allows specialist staff to work on multiple projects at once, giving customers the real time data and analysis they need to compete in the fast-paced markets at the heart of the energy transition.

In the decade since, Fugro has established ROCs around the world. In this episode, we learn how staff in Houston, Aberdeen, Dubai and Perth are enjoying a better work-life...


#313 Introducing: Mapping Italyā€™s Seagrass for Biodiversity Gain, from Planet Beyond
01/23/2025

The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) has a 100 year history of mapping the worldā€™s oceans. John Nyberg, technical director, explains how the organisationā€™s role in understanding our oceans is evolving. Now, rather than just recording ocean depths for mariners, the organisation is setting standards for how we record environmental data. In Italy, this approach is being put into effect with an ambitious coastline mapping project. Planet Beyond explored this work in a recent episode.

In a bid to reverse a decline in biodiversity, Italy aims to map 7500 kilometres of coastline to a depth of 50 metres. Marco Fili...


#312 Lifting Each Other Up ā€” Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, People
01/17/2025

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 build communities. They are contributing to building peopleā€™s careers, and it is those jobs that are central to building a better world.

In this episode, the last of four profiling shortlisted entries in the Engineering Matters Awards, we are looking at how engineers are helping to build better, more diverse workforces, and supporting the communities they work in.


Guests

Stuart Culley, Customer & Social Va...


#311 Transforming the World, and the Economy ā€” Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 3
01/16/2025

At the core of engineering and manufacturing, is the transformation of materials.Ā 

A tree becomes a book. A stone is transformed into a concrete bridge, rocks into steel and glass skyscrapers.

Each of these transformations are inefficient. Raw materials are lost to waste. Mechanical energy is converted into lost heat. In this inefficiency, we gradually chip away at our planet, and its liveability.

If we are to maintain our planet, we must find new, more efficient ways to perform these transformations. We must move from a linear economy, where materials are extracted, transformed, u...


#310 Manufacturing a Brighter Future ā€“ Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 2
01/15/2025

Across every sector, from manufacturing to transportation, energy to construction, the race toward a net zero future is reshaping how we work, produce, and consume. These industries have powered global growth for decades, but now, they must also lead the way in securing a sustainable future.

The scale of the challenge is immense. Achieving a greener future will require more than incremental changesā€”it demands bold, transformative ideas. In this second episode of four looking at shortlisted entries to the Engineering Matters Awards, weā€™re looking at ways to make industry cleaner and more efficient. Whether thatā€™s in c...


#310 Manufacturing a Brighter Future ā€“ Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 2
01/15/2025

Across every sector, from manufacturing to transportation, energy to construction, the race toward a net zero future is reshaping how we work, produce, and consume. These industries have powered global growth for decades, but now, they must also lead the way in securing a sustainable future.

The scale of the challenge is immense. Achieving a greener future will require more than incremental changesā€”it demands bold, transformative ideas. In this second episode of four looking at shortlisted entries to the Engineering Matters Awards, weā€™re looking at ways to make industry cleaner and more efficient. Whether thatā€™s in c...


#309 A Generation of Change ā€“ Engineering Matters Awards 2025 shortlist, Planet, Part 1
01/14/2025

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 key to developing efficient, decarbonised energy, and to how we use this energy in our homes.

This week, we introduce the shortlisted entries for the 2025 Engineering Matters Awards. The awards aim to celebrate the impact that engineers have on people, and on the planet. In this first episode of four, we look at how shortlisted entries in the Net Zero, Environment, and Sustainability categories are changing energy generation, and domestic energy...


#308 Building Bandwidth in the 1920s
01/09/2025

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 and collaboration, and enrich our personal lives with the ability to engage with friends and family around the world. Maintaining these connections is a central aim of engineers in the 21st century.

Little has changed in a hundred years. In the early years of the 20th Century, London was the backbone router of a communications network that was revolutionising the business and social lives of Britons. Information was transferred by letters...