APPENDIX 23
Memorandum submitted by the Institute
of Mechanical Engineers
In our last financial year (January-December
2001), the Institution's total income from all sources was approximately
£19.8 million. Only a tiny fraction of this (£0.12 million)
was directly from central government departments, and all of that
was for specific projects, viz:
Sponsorship of Manufacturing Excellence Awards
(DTI)—£50,000
Administration of BEP Biothrust Challenge (DTI)—£47,000
Administration of Whitworth Scholarship Fund
(DES)—£24,000
The bulk of our income comes from membership
subscriptions, publications and events. Many engineers within
central government are members of IMechE and/or purchase our publications
or attend our events, so some of this income will inevitably come
from departmental budgets, but it is not possible to put an exact
figure on this.
We provide advice to government mainly via responding
to government consultations on matters relevant to mechanical
engineering (eg energy policy, transport systems, manufacturing
competitiveness) and through occasional parliamentary/ministerial
lobbying activities. We are involved in communicating engineering
and technology to the public mainly via various schools initiatives,
open days, local and national news media and our web site.
I would like to turn now to our own views on
government funding of the scientific learned societies, most notably
RAEng and RS. We applaud much of the excellent work done by these
bodies. The RAEng's Ingenia publication is highly commendable,
for example. We also admire their ability to raise substantial
funds from industry in addition to grant in aid moneys received
from central government, and recognise this as a good indicator
of the quality and relevance of the work they do. We would, however,
like to make the following additional point:
Science is a vital part of the innovation process,
but it is engineering that transforms scientific understanding
into the innovative, successful technologies that society needs
and desires. It has long been recognised that the UK is excellent
at science, but lags other nations in the exploitation of that
knowledge. The current imbalance between government support for
science and that for engineering seems symptomatic of this trend.
Until government recognises that engineering excellence is every
bit as vital to the UK as scientific excellence, we will never
close the competitiveness gap that exists between us and many
other nations.
Sir Michael Moore KBE
LVO
Director General
April 2002
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