The Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award is the premier prize for UK innovation in engineering. It seeks to demonstrate the importance of engineering and the role of engineers and scientists in contributing to national prosperity and international prestige. It is awarded annually for an outstanding example of innovation and benefit to the community, which has also achieved commercial success. Each year the winning team receives a gold medal, widespread publicity, a £50,000 prize and an exclusive weekend away at Douneside House. 

Originally founded by the MacRobert Trust, the Award is now presented and run by the Royal Academy of Engineering. The Engineers Trust is supporting the Award with £20,000 annually for 10 years.

Selected by a judging panel of esteemed engineering experts, the 2023 MacRobert Award winner is:

Ceres Power for its pioneering clean energy technology, including fuel cells for power generation and electrolysers for green hydrogen.  The solid oxide cell is based on common low-cost materials that, combined with an innovative deposition technique and a highly differentiated stack technology, delivers the sort of improved performance that will be crucial if the world is to decarbonise at the scale and pace required to tackle climate change.

Ceres has a proprietary technology that is truly reversible. Running in one direction it can use multiple fuels to generate electricity highly efficiently when and where it is needed. Run in reverse, it generates green hydrogen at high efficiencies and low cost—an innovation the MacRobert Award judges praised as a huge breakthrough in the clean energy revolution.

Fuel cells are not a new technology, but exotic material sets, high operating temperatures or the requirement for hydrogen fuel have made them the preserve of space missions. Ceres has pioneered the use of commonly found materials: a gadolinium-doped ceria ceramic membrane as an electrolyte printed onto thin perforated ferritic steel sheets that operate at temperatures in the range of 500–600C. This is a ‘Goldilocks’ temperature for performance, fuel flexibility, cost and robustness.

The result is Ceres’ patented cell technology. One cell is enough to light a room but the 250 megawatts of capacity set to come on stream in 2024 could power half a million homes. Ceres’ licensing model has enabled it to establish partnerships with some of the world’s most progressive companies, such as Bosch, Doosan, and Weichai, to deliver systems and products at the scale and pace needed to decarbonise power generation, transportation, industry, and everyday living.

The other 2023 MacRobert Award finalists are:

nPlan for its machine-learning technology which accurately forecasts how long every element of a construction project is likely to take and represents the most dramatic step forward in decades for forecasting and de-risking large-scale construction and infrastructure projects.

Paragraf which has produced the first real commercial use of graphene in electronic devices, rather than as a structural additive in composites.  This will undoubtedly have implications across many sectors.

Royal Academy of Engineering Announcement

The MacRobert Trust website

The Worshipful Company of Engineers Charitable Trust (the Engineers Trust) acknowledges excellence in engineering, supports engineering education and research, gives grants and assists in the relief of poverty.