Presidential Blog: A Seasonal Message
19th December 2023
IChemE President Nigel Hirst discusses some of the highlights of his presidential term during his 2023 seasonal message.
The work of our volunteers lies at the heart of everything we achieve as an Institution, and I was delighted that IChemE marked its appreciation of these key efforts on International Volunteer Day with the launch of a new volunteer digital badge.
Developed for volunteers to use on their LinkedIn profile and other social media platforms, the badge spotlights our volunteers’ achievements to their professional and personal networks, highlighting the important contributions they are making. I was very happy to receive mine, and I’ve also enjoyed seeing the badges being proudly shared on social media by many IChemE volunteers who are actively supporting the advance of chemical engineering with their knowledge and expertise.
For those of you that would like your own badge next year, get in touch with volunteering@icheme.org - there are a wide variety of interesting roles to get involved with.
As we approach the festive season, I want to thank you for your support over the past year and express my gratitude to all our members for helping to make this year a success. It is a moment for me to acknowledge and appreciate your incredible commitment to advancing the principles and practices of chemical and process engineering. Your dedication to meeting our shared goals has not only strengthened our profession, but has also served society as we help to engineer a sustainable world. I am excited about the positive impact we can collectively make in the coming year, as we continue to push the boundaries of innovation, foster collaboration, and uphold the highest standards of excellence in our field.
Our Board of Trustees and Congress are particularly crucial volunteering roles, and although I am only halfway through my presidency and still have much to deliver during my term of office, I would encourage you to consider standing for election if you are interested in helping IChemE to engineer a sustainable world and deliver value to our members. I’ll be talking about these specific roles in more detail early next year as we move towards our elections.
Looking back over the last few months, I’m pleased with our progression on some exciting initiatives, including IChemE Connect, our new platform where all members can engage in conversation, interact on topics, ask questions, and share views and experience.
IChemE Connect has now launched to a pilot group of around 100 members and will be rolled out to the wider membership early in the spring.
Our collaboration with ITN Business to produce the ‘Engineering a Sustainable World’ programme gave us the opportunity to look at the critical role that chemical and process engineers play in addressing some of our global grand challenges.
If you haven’t already, please take a look at the series of short films and share them with your peers and colleagues so that we can help to inspire the next generation of engineers.
Our focus on ensuring the sustainability of the profession continued with the launch of the IChemE DiscoverChemEng education programme; please do promote the suite of posters, bookmarks and banner resources to primary and secondary schools in your networks. The Davidson Inventors Challenge, named in honour of IChemE Fellow Emeritus Professor John Davidson, is another great opportunity for members to promote the rewarding discipline of chemical engineering to Years 11 and 12, and is open for registration until 8 January 2024.
We are continuing to recruit roles that impact positively on member experience and engagement, and ensure that our collective voice is heard. I’m very pleased to announce the appointment of Duncan Lugton as Head of Policy and Impact, who hit the ground running this month by convening a cross-sector roundtable discussion on Battery Energy Storage System safety.
I hope you will have the opportunity to take a well-earned break in the days ahead and enjoy spending time with friends and family, but just a gentle reminder before you close your laptop for the year that membership subscriptions are due on 1 January. To retain your privileges as a member and remain a part of our vibrant community, please renew your membership for 2024 now if you haven’t already done so. You’ll continue to enjoy a great range of benefits, as well as helping us continue to build a more dynamic, inclusive, sustainable and supportive Institution and profession.
I extend my very best wishes to you all, and I hope you have a pleasant holiday season, with a happy and successful year ahead.
Previous presidential blogs
November 2023 - Collaborations and conversations
October 2023 - To mentor or be mentored, everybody wins!
September 2023 - Engineering a sustainable world
August 2023 - Futureproofing the profession
July 2023 - The hard work starts now!