Many congratulations to two WES members Dorothy Hatfield, WES Past President, and Professor Isobel Pollock on their awards in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2014.

Dorothy Hatfield OBE

 
 In 1956 Dorothy broke completely new ground and the culture of the time by becoming the first and at the time only engineering apprentice ever with Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd at Brooklands  She succeeded in a totally male environment to graduate with a 1st class hons degree in Aeronautical Engineering.  She continued with a very full career in the aero industry to a senior position with a Flight Simulation company before retirement.  She achieved career recognition with her election to be a Fellow of The Royal Aeronautical Society. She took a career break of 8 years to bring up a family prior to returning into the aero industry. This required some determination and she used her experience of confronting the prejudicesn to help others in her voluntary work. Her career took her overseas on several occasions, including 6 months in the USA with Boeing Military on secondment from the UK.  Her career culminated with the successful negotiation of a PFI contract with The MOD to provide simulation training at RAF Waddington for the AWACS crews, a great achivement for a woman in a male dominated world.

Dorothy was President of WES between 1990 and 1991. Further details of her work for WES can be seen here. 

Professor Isobel Pollock OBE

Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor, Engineering and Design - University of Leeds
127th President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2012-2013)
An experienced consultant and businesswoman, Isobel specialises in multi-disciplinary engineering projects, technology road mapping and Knowledge Transfer Projects.  Working at senior management level with companies such as ICI, DuPont, Robert McBride and Beatson Clark, she has expertise in the chemicals, metal handling, glassware, food, drinks and pharmaceutical industries. Further details here. 

The first meeting of the WES Policy Forum is being held on 23rd June at 5.30 - 6.45 after the Women in Engineering Day Conference at the IMechE.

The agenda will to discuss how the Policy Forum will represent the WES, including how it will operate and to identify some ideas for action in the short and medium term. Please come along to add your thoughts and input this is primarily an information and scoping session and doesn't commit you to joining the Forum!

If you would like to attend please let Sharon Kindleysides know so that we can ensure we have enough seats! Please also let her know if you are unable to attend but would like to be kept updated about the Policy Forum.

WES has a pair of ladies safety boots from a new range by Rockfall to give away. The lightweight and flexible, extra robust, genuine Nubuck leather upper boots are 100% waterproof with a breathable Activ-Tex membrane and have a super durable solid rubber outsole bonded using heat resistant glue. They are available in standard UK ladies sizes 3 to 8. To be in with a chance of winning, email info@wes.org.uk making your email Safety Boots Competition, and include your size and postal address and whether you would like them in black leather or brown nubuck. The winner will be notified on National Women in Engineering Day.

Does the engineering profession suffer from a lack of strong female engineering role models? Do young girls understand what engineers really do? What can we do to inspire more girls to want to become engineers?

Following National Women in Engineering Day, Chi Onwurah MP, IET Fellow and Chartered Engineer, will join a panel of female engineers on Tuesday 24 June to discuss the issues faced by women in engineering. The panel includes:

• Margaret Graham FIET - Electrical/electronic and radio frequency engineer
• Victoria Martin - Finalist at the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2013
• Leah Ridgway - Engineering lecturer at the University of Nottingham

UK statistics show that only 7% of the engineering workforce is female, even though the industry is facing a skills shortage and many people are looking for work.

So why aren't more women choosing careers in this profession? What messages are young girls getting at school? How can the Government and organisations like the IET help to improve the statistics and make sure we have positive female role models who can inspire the next generation of engineers?

The panel will be answering your questions and sharing their experiences as female engineers live on 24 June at 12pm BST

Participate live

Please send your questions and comments for the panel via our live chat room  or tweet us (#ietwebcast).

Submit questions in advance

If you're not able to join us live, please tweet us your questions (#ietwebcast), or email 

You are invited to join the Royal Aeronautical Society's Women in Aviation and Aerospace Committee (WAAC) for a lunch time panel discussion at the Farnborough Air Show on Thursday 17th July 2014.  This event will bring a panel of women in senior positions together to discuss the role of women in the Aviation industry and the challenges they face when trying to climb the career ladder, particularly in a male-dominated industry. 

Confirmed panellist include The Rt Hon Maria Miller MP, previously Minister for Women & Equalities and Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, as well as Jenny Body OBE FRAeS, past President of the Royal Aeronautical Society.  Further panellists will be announced shortly.

This event will take place between 12.30 and 14.30, so why not pop along during your lunch break?  The panel discussion will run between 12.30 and 13.30, then there will be an opportunity to network with your peers afterwards between 13.30 and 14.30, when a light lunch will be served.

This event will be free to attend and will be open to both members and non-members of the Society.  Places are limited so we would appreciate it if you could pre-register.  Both men and women are welcome to attend.  Please note that you will need to be in possession of a Farnborough Air Show ticket to get into the venue.

To find out more information and to book a place, please visit the website  or contact Laura Dowling

Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock has today (12 June 2014) announced a £30 million fund to increase the supply of engineers, to encourage more women into the sector and to address engineering skills shortages in smaller companies. The fund will enable engineering companies to establish training programmes to develop future engineers and boost the number of women in the profession.

£10 million of the fund will be directed to a call to 'Developing Women Engineers' and £10 million to a call to 'Improving Engineering Careers'. A further £10 million will be made available in the autumn to develop engineering skills in smaller companies. The calls have been developed in consultation with professional institutions and leading engineering companies from across the sector.

Speaking at the launch of the Manufacture your Future initiative in the West Midlands, Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock said:

Skills are central to the UK economy and our long-term competitiveness. In order to allow UK engineering to grow and compete on the world stage we need a guaranteed supply of highly skilled and talented engineers.

As highlighted in the Perkins Review, the engineering sector is currently failing to draw on the whole talent pool. By supporting employers to develop the workforce of the future and bring more women into the engineering, we're empowering the industry to unlock its potential.

The announcement forms part of the government's Employer Ownership Fund that enables employers to design training projects that can address skills shortages holding back their business, providing 50% match funding to employers.

'Developing Women Engineers' and 'Improving Engineering Careers' are the first of a series of focused calls, centred on priority sectors that play a key role in ensuring the UK's global economic competitiveness. Prospective bidders are encouraged to explore how they can support employees, particularly women, looking to return to the sector and how individuals with relevant skills can be helped to progress to become fully qualified engineers.

The calls come as a direct response to recommendations made in Perkins Review of Engineering, published in November 2013. Professor Perkins' review of skills within the engineering sector recommended the government invite employers to put forward innovative proposals to develop engineering skills in sectors suffering acute skills shortages.

The government is working together with industry to address these critical issues and establish the skills training that can guarantee a vibrant and prosperous UK engineering sector. This follows a call to action announced in May 2014 supported by over 170 leading organisations across business, education and the third sector. The call to action will create some 2,000 employment opportunities aimed at increasing diversity and put in place a raft of measures geared towards increasing take-up across science, technology, engineering and maths.

Minister for Women Nicky Morgan said:

I am pleased to announce that the government is providing £10 million to help women progress as engineers. We need to move away from the perception that engineering is a 'man's world'. Without women pursuing careers in engineering, UK companies are missing out on a vast pool of talent.

The Employer Ownership Fund empowers employers to work with government to solve skills challenges that cannot be supported through mainstream funding. The fund is focused on combating skills shortages in key strategic sectors such as engineering and automotive due to the role they play in driving growth and the government's Industrial Strategy.

Terry Scuoler chief executive of EEF, the manufacturers' organisation said:

The lack of engineering skills in the UK has become a ticking time-bomb, and manufacturers are investing heavily in their current and future workforces to prevent it from exploding. This must include investing in all sections of our workforce, in particular women where the UK has an especially poor record. What has been needed is extra support to push companies to adopt more innovative solutions to truly tackle the skills shortage and gender imbalance that exists in our industry.

The fund announced today will do just that and we will be encouraging manufacturers to get involved and take this opportunity to tackle the skills challenge head-on.

The IET Women's Network is an initiative, set up in order to engage with under-represented groups within engineering and technology and support them throughout their career.

We would like to say a massive thank you to Steph Tilley in the office who is leaving to have a baby. She has done a fantastic job whilst she has been covering for Cath Heslop who is on maternity leave . We look forward to welcoming Cath back in July but please be patient if contacting the office in the next few weeks as we will be without office cover. 

23rd June 6.30-9.00pm at the IET Teacher'r Building, 14 Enoch Square, Glasgow, G1 4DB

Scottish Circle of WES and Equare Scotland are hosting a joint evening evet in Glasgow to celebrate NWED.

To register click here

Speakers so far are

• Sue Cresswell, Atkins Global
• Professor Liz Tanner, University of Glasgow
• Fiona Rankin, Student, University of Strathclyde 

The latest issue of The Woman Engineer has been sent to WES members, if you haven't received your copy please let the WES office know.

Engineers are a strategically important resource for economies and societies, and for our world more generally. The skills of all members of the 'engineering team' - at a number of skill levels - are important, and in today's world skilled workers, technicians and professional engineers often spend some time abroad. As with other technical skillsets, there is continuing demand around the world for the best talent, and there can be shortages from time to time in particular specialist areas. Flows of 'new' professional engineers onto the labour market do not always follow the assumed "linear model" - that those with degrees in aeronautical engineering go and work in the Aerospace industry, those with electronic engineering degrees work in the electronics sector, etc. Generally, the fraction of women who enter both engineering courses (whether in Vocational or Higher

Education) and, thereafter, engineering work, remains small, although there are important variations between countries. The ease of economic migration of those with specialist engineering skills depends significantly on whether their main work activity is regulated in the destination country or not.

There is a wide range of variations between countries and jurisdictions (for example in the United States and Canada) in terms of how the engineering profession is regulated, which often pose real challenges for mobility in practice. This chapter put women's mobility issues in the context of migration of Engineers and Technicians more generally, and examines the limited evidence available of how women migrants fare within this world.

If you are able to help with information relating to this topic, please contact Dr Matthew Dixon directly.