The Engineers Panel Event

The Engineers is an annual panel event series staged in partnership between the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and BBC World Service. The event brings together leading experts around a pressing and relevant issue for engineering and science today. Big Ideas is commissioned by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to deliver aspects of the production of the event and more recently to capture a global digital audience. 

Previous editions of The Engineers have looked at robotics, the future of space flight, how scientists have been re-inventing the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and pioneering engineering in renewable energy. These were recorded live at London’s Natural History Museum, Imperial College London and the V&A. Each event is recorded and broadcast by the BBC World Service and in the last two years broadcast on BBC World News.

Until 2020, the panel event took place in-person in a special venue on Exhibition Road, London. In 2020 the event was held remotely and in 2021 as a hybrid event. For both occasions Big Ideas delivered a digital ad campaign to find an engaged global digital audience.

The event kick-starts an annual engineering schools competition called Aspire to Engineer delivered by Big Ideas for the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

You can listen to previous broadcasts of The Engineers here:

The Engineers, 19 June 2016: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xzcjs
The Engineers: Rise of the Robots, 18 June 2017: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p055glcb
The Engineers: Genetic Engineering, 27 September 2018: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxhjb
The Engineers: Space Flight, 14 July 2019: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz4q3
The Engineers: Re-engineering the Future, 28 June 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct0whb
The Engineers: Renewable Energy, 28 June 2021: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2gh4
The Engineers: The future of cars, June 2022: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct43ms
The Engineers: Lunar exploration, June 2023: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5j1v

Find out more about the Royal Commission here: https://www.royalcommission1851.org/