Global engineering gathering to explore humanity's most pressing challenges

Jointly hosted by the UK, US and Chinese academies of engineering The Global Grand Challenges Summit 2019 is the fourth event of its kind. The event first ran in London in 2013, whilst subsequent summits took place in Beijing and Washington. It was initially inspired by the 14 grand challenges for engineering - a checklist of civilisation-saving engineering priorities compiled by the US National Academy of Engineering in 2008 - and aims to bring together engineers from around the world to discuss and explore how they can work together to address some of the global challenges we face.

This year’s summit, coordinated by the Royal Academy of Engineering, leads with the theme ‘Engineering in an unpredictable world’,  but has a particular focus on two key sub-themes: the challenges of sustaining a world of 10 billion people, and ensuring that AI and other transformational technologies have a positive impact on humanity.