Message from RAeS

Message from RAeS

Prof Jonathan Cooper​

​​In these challenging times there has been a scarcity of good news, so it was very pleasing to hear that the Society has been awarded the Best Professional Engineering Institution Prize as one of the inaugural Engineering Talent Awards. The award ‘recognises PEIs who go above and beyond to support their members and who are particularly increasing awareness of D&I and positive mental wellbeing’. We were shortlisted against two of the larger professional institutions, so this outcome is particularly welcome. The award highlights some of the exceptional work that is being done by the Headquarters staff and many of our volunteers. Many thanks must go to Lt Cdr Richard Gearing FRAeS and the D&I Working Group who put the nomination together. Congratulations to all involved.

I am continuingly impressed as to how most of the Society’s activities are continuing to flourish, albeit in a digital format, and this includes our publications. The Aeronautical Journal continues to publish high-quality research papers covering all forms of aerospace vehicles. As well as a continuing expansion of the number of internationally renowned Associate Editors, who co-ordinate the manuscript review process, it is satisfying to note that downloads from the Journal have increased by a third in the past year – a substantial rise. We are always looking for ideas for review articles or subject-based special issues, so if you have any suggestions for good topics and/or individuals whom we should approach, please contact the editor Prof Holger Babinsky FRAeS journal.editor@aerosociety.com

As I mentioned in the last edition of AEROSPACE, the Society has started its virtual conference programme using the new digital platform. I tuned into both days of the Safeguarding Earth’s Space Environment conference and was very impressed with the number of excellent speakers and panel members from across the world who participated. The conference addressed the increasing amount of debris and defunct objects in Earth orbit, which is likely to constrain our future exploration of space, and discussed both the technical approaches to tracking, avoiding collisions and de-orbiting large objects and the need for enhanced international regulations and global collaboration. I would like to thank President-Elect Howard Nye FRAeS and the Space Specialist Group for organising such an excellent event.

I also recently attended the committee meeting of my local RAeS Branch and was pleased to see that a programme of lectures was being put together for the coming season, of course in an online mode. The intention is to provide a mixture of local presentations coupled with offerings from the main Society and other Branches. I would encourage all our local Branches to make each other aware of events that they are putting on and to share them digitally. One positive outcome with the move to a digital lecture programme has meant that we now have had many 100s of attendees to lectures in Hamilton Place that would have not been able to travel to London in normal times. I hope that this is will be the case with future branch lectures. In my last column I mentioned the homework that I had set Council over the summer to consider the future operation of the Society and September’s Council meeting included a very useful discussion about the outcomes from this exercise. Bearing in mind that we don’t have the resources to tackle everything, it was considered that the most important areas where focus is needed to meet the Society’s strategic aims (outlined in the October 2019 issue of AEROSPACE) are:

• Become genuinely international with more international reach by increasing global and diverse participation in activities with target audiences around the globe, remaining relevant and in the forefront of global aviation (in totality) as a Think Tank for generating new ideas and providing well-considered professional advice, and enabling greater international participation in the Society’s Specialist Groups and Committees.
• Digitisation of the Society needs to improve further so that digital delivery becomes an integral part of our day-to-day business facilitating meetings, interviews, workshops, conferences and lectures, etc, making more of our own important historical information assets widely available via digital means, using digital technologies to encourage individuals to join the Society or volunteering their time to support its activities.
• Our volunteer strategy needs considerable work so that a larger diverse, engaged, and inclusive global group of volunteers are recruited across the aviation and aerospace sectors for different types of volunteering experiences. We need to support, inform and develop these volunteers and encourage them to be true ambassadors of the Society and enable volunteers to take a more leading role in delivering activity.
• The Society still needs much improvement in our progress to meet our aspirations to be a truly diverse and inclusive organisation in both word and deed by reaching out to a much wider talent pool, increasing the D&I both within our membership and the Sector at large. The Society’s regulation and governance needs to embrace D&I by pushing D&I within its Boards and Committees and showcasing D&I role models within its Boards.

In the coming months I will let you know about some of the specific actions that are going to be brought in across the Society to enable the above.

Sir Brian Burridge

• The President has highlighted our selection as the ‘Best Professional Engineering Institution of the Year’ at the inaugural Engineering Talent Awards. This justly recognises the effort that we are putting into diversity and inclusion largely through the compelling contribution of volunteers. Elsewhere in this issue there is a report on our recent BAME webinar but October is also Black History Month in the UK. As such, the Learned Society Board (again volunteers) has approved a new Named Lecture to be known as the Mary Jackson Lecture in honour of the first black female aerospace engineer to work at NASA. Meanwhile, food for thought from the Royal Academy of Engineering: only 37% of black engineering graduates enter engineering occupations, compared with 60% of their white counterparts. Moreover, only 8% of apprentices in engineering and associated subjects are female while just 6.5% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. These are good enough reasons for the Council telling us to do more and do it faster, particularly in addressing unconscious bias.
• On External Affairs, we submitted a critical response to the CAA on its proposals for the classification of airspace courtesy of our volunteer specialist experts (www.aerosociety.com/policy). In Parliament, our input to the Defence Select Committee featured in their report In Search of Strategy – The 2020 Integrated Review which is available on the link above. The UAS Specialist Group also provided expert opinion to ICAO where we are privileged to be an ‘approved organisation’. In addition, both staff and volunteers have been working with the Department for Transport on decarbonising aircraft and on roundtables with the Secretary of State on skills and future aviation. Meanwhile, August saw extensive news coverage of the Flight Operations Group’s Evacuation Report, tied to an emergency at Stansted Airport where passengers carrying cabin baggage hindered escape: the report has stimulated further AAIB research on the issue.
• AND A LAST PIECE OF GOOD NEWS: 2021 FEES HAVE BEEN FROZEN AT 2020 LEVELS! 
• We are also pleased that the National Aerospace Library has re-opened such that members and non-members alike can make an appointment to consult our contemporary and historical collections in person. To book, visit www.aerosociety.com/nal and follow the links. As ever, you can consult our e-books and new e-journals collection at www.aerosociety.com/elibrary. As well keeping up-to-date with a range of papers and articles via the e-journals package, members now have access to a new collection of material aimed at young professionals.
• Staying with young professionals, their annual conference has been replaced by a video series, Aerospace and Aviation until 2050: What’s Next? with some really inspirational speakers. There will be five weekly broadcasts on our YouTube and Instagram TV channels from 30 September. Soon afterwards comes our autumn careers fair. In these difficult times, we want to increase our reach to young people so Careers in Aerospace & Aviation LIVE 2020 will take place as a virtual event on 4 November using a new platform to retain interaction between exhibitors and visitors, run competitions and deliver a great programme of insight talks for all career levels. We are very grateful to the support of Boeing for this event. To register your interest as a visitor please contact careers@aerosociety.com. For Exhibitor package details, please contact rosalind.azouzi@aerosociety.com and help us come together to support the future needs of the industry and its recovery.
• As for Corporate Partners, Monday 12 October sees Glenn Llewellyn from Airbus briefing on zero emissions research. In November we have Professor Sir Charlie Bean from LSE and formerly the OBR to talk about the post-budget and postBrexit economy. In December, Professor Mike Clarke, formerly Director-General at RUSI, will give an analysis of the Integrated Defence and Security review. The dates will be firmed-up as the Government’s timetable becomes clearer.
• Finally, some special recognition: Keeley Scott and her team have delivered the transition to virtual conferences with great success. Congratulations also goes to Tim Robinson, the AEROSPACE Editor-in-Chief, on receiving the Honourable Company of Air Pilots Award for Aviation Journalism. In terms of long-serving volunteers, Sir Peter Norriss was the inaugural chair at the 2003 creation of the Centennial Fund panel and is now handing over. The fund has since provided over 390 awards with a value of some £940,000 to individuals and teams. Meanwhile, Dr Kit Mitchell was the founding editor in 2009 of the Society’s Journal of Aeronautical History which has since gone from strength-to-strength. In his place, we welcome Dr Robert Hopkins who is an eminent and widely-published aviation historian. Finally, thanks to all our volunteers, without whom little of what I have written could have been a reality. And a last piece of good news: 2021 fees have been frozen at 2020 levels!