The first Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering has gone to five of the pioneers behind the internet and World Wide Web. Which option best represents your opinion on this?
The judges of the first Queen Elizabeth Prize should have gone for a more concrete example of engineering than the World Wide Web and internet, according to the largest proportion — 46 per cent — of the 213 respondents to last week’s poll. The next largest group, 27 per cent, said that the award would help people appreciate better the scope of technologies that come under the banner of engineering, while 13 per cent said that it would promote the field of engineering as a whole. A similar amount thought that awarding the prize to the Web and net pioneers fitted the bill of a ‘Nobel for engineering.’
Whilst pleased that Sir Tim Werners-Lee received this award, I was puzzled as to why the other recipients were non-British, as my impression was that the Queen Elizabeth Prize is purely designed to stimulate British Technology and Engineering.
Thanks for the explanation Editor. Nevertheless I still feel that, if the UK is going to give an annual monetary prize in respect of innovative engineering, British engineers should be considered before anyone else. If however it is meant to be a global award other countries must be expected to contribute towards the prize money.