We are thrilled to announce the re-launch of the Talent 2030 Engineering Competition for girls, to celebrate, incentivise and encourage young, ambitious female engineers of the future.
The competition asks girls aged 11-18 from across the UK to use engineering to solve a twenty-first century problem. We have seen some amazing and inspiring entries in the past, from prosthetic elbows produced on 3D printers, to fully functioning societies encased in a single sky-scraper and car tyres which produce energy as they turn.
Exploring these entries with our wonderful team of female judges is a highlight of the year, always immensely encouraging for the future of the engineering industry and UK innovation.
To ensure we can succeed in safeguarding the UK’s engineering future, the competition comes with the backdrop of serious targets to ensure Britain’s talent base meets international averages and standards. The Talent 2030 Annual Dashboard of Statistics monitors the number of women studying and working in engineering against targets for the year 2030.
This is a long-running campaign for the National Centre – our Great Expectations report in 2011 marked the beginning of our journey towards improving uptake of STEM subjects, particularly engineering, are equally attractive to young people of both genders.
We have been tracking progress to our 2030 targets and today, we are launching the fifth Talent 2030 Dashboard, which shows negligible growth in the amount of girls in pathway courses to engineering. There has also been a decline in the amount of female professional engineers in the UK.
The Dashboard outlines the immediate need to improve understanding of the realities and opportunities for female students pursuing STEM subjects, and to encourage more women into associated careers.
The contrast between this negligible growth and the inspiring projects we see with the Engineering Competition for Girls, is a true reflection of the missed opportunities, in encouraging more young women into careers where they are underrepresented.
Because of this, we want every girl in the UK to have the opportunity to enter the competition, giving them the opportunity to explore the creative world of engineering as well as winning some fantastic prizes such as: £1000, a female engineering mentor, student membership to the Women’s Engineering Society, exclusive tours of our wonderful sponsors, the chance to exhibit at the Big Bang Fair, and more.
The competition will run until Friday 16th December and prizes will be awarded at the Big Bang Fair in March 2017. The competition is free to enter and is sponsored by Rolls-Royce, PepsiCo and Centrica.
We thank these wonderful organisations for recognising that it is more important than ever, now, to harness our potential and ensure that the high level of skill and creativity we see each year in the competition, yields great future success for UK female engineers on the world stage.
Take a look at the competition’s promotional materials here (2.09 MB).
Policy and Programmes Manager, NCUB
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