Salisbury awarded inaugural Warner Prize

Ben Salisbury became the first recipient of IChemE’s new Sir Frederick Warner Prize last night at an event held in memory of the past IChemE president and the Institution’s longest serving member.

Salisbury, group head at EDF Energy, UK, delivered the first Warner Prize lecture and discussed how the role of today’s chemical engineer was shaped by the achievements of Sir Frederick, who passed away last year aged 100.

He told an audience of more than 100 invited guests that a professional chemical engineer must commit to life-long learning:  “What we do encompasses such a wide range of issues and we work within different environments and facing different pressures, that we require a broad scientific and engineering knowledge. A commitment to continuous learning and development was as relevant in Sir Frederick’s working life as it is today.

"Sir Frederick also believed in the importance of working with other scientists and engineers and that’s something that today chemical engineers are better placed than many to do.”

Salisbury was presented with the Warner medal and a cheque for £1000 by IChemE president Sir William Wakeham, in the presence of Sir Frederick’s widow, Lady Barbara Warner.

Sir Frederick joined IChemE in 1936. sat on Council from 1948-50, became honorary secretary in 1953 and held the presidency from 1966-67. He was also a founding member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, elected to the Royal Society in 1976 and knighted for services to chemical engineering in 1968.

He was instrumental in the formation of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the creation of the chemical engineering consultancy Cremer & Warner and the investigation of Chernobyl. He was presented with a range of awards and prizes during his distinguished career including the Royal Society’s Leverhulme medal (1978) and Buchanan medal (1982), the Rhineland Prize for Environmental Protection (1984) and the Gerard Piel Award for Service to Science in the Cause of Man (1991).

The event also featured a panel discussion on the future of chemical engineering where Mark Henderson, science editor of The Times warned that politicians often lacked sufficient engineering knowledge relating to the government policies they put in place: “Science and engineering hasn’t contributed to the political landscape as much as it perhaps should have and politicians sometimes don’t recognise the impact political processes can have on engineering.

“For example, the UK government has set out its strategy for new nuclear build but there is no strategy explaining how we’re going to develop and recruit all of the engineering expertise that will be required to make it happen. There is a disconnect between engineers and politicians.”

The event opened with four short presentations on chemical engineering contributions over the last century in the fields of water, energy, food & nutrition and health & wellbeing, the four key challenge areas of IChemE’s technical strategy. Other speakers at the event included IChemE council member and foreign secretary of the Royal Society Martyn Poliakoff and Peter Warner, son of Sir Frederick.

The event was sponsored by URS.