Prof Christopher Snowden, president, Institution of Engineering and Technology

Turmoil in the economy and environmental upheaval: it’s an interesting time to head up an engineering institute. Christopher Snowden, taking on the presidency of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) this year, takes the view that it’s an opportunity for engineers, both for technology and industry to take over from finance as the powerhouse of the economy, and to find solutions to energy conservation and climate change.

But this is the UK; a country where, many believe, engineering has been underappreciated, overlooked and discounted for years. How to restore technologists to their proper standing is something which Snowden, a microwave technology specialist and now vice-chancellor and chief executive of the University of Surrey, has high on the agenda for his year at the top of the IET.

It’s a familiar complaint that the UK is bad at exploiting its technological innovations, but Snowden doesn’t agree. ‘Just because you’ve come up with something, doesn’t necessarily mean that the best place to exploit it is in the same country,’ he said. ‘We’ve actually done a pretty good job of it; there are an awful lot of spin-offs companies originating from UK research. But for example, in my own university, we invented the quantum dot laser which is now used in CD and DVD players, but that had a lineage where Philips acquired the technology and brought it to the world. We shouldn’t feel bad because we don’t commercialise everything we discover, as long as we commercialise enough of it to keep our industry healthy.’