Graham Hinchly (Mechanical), Peter Levi, and Tom Mynors (Civil), Edward Thompson (Aeronautical), and Richard van Arkel (Engineering Maths) competed in a challenging selection event against 150 students from UK universities to win the national Royal Academy of Engineering Leadership Advanced awards.

Professor Nick Lieven, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said: ‘I’m delighted by the continued and increasing success of Bristol engineers in these important awards - this group has represented the Faculty with great credit, and I’m very proud of them.  Their plans for spending their awards sound ambitious and impressive - I will be cheering them on enthusiastically!’

This year’s award winners have a diverse range of plans.  Peter Levi plans to enhance his study abroad year in California, and learn Spanish.  Graham Hinchly is also focusing on language skills: he plans to improve his French and begin to study Mandarin, as well as pursuing several sales and marketing courses to increase his knowledge of business outside engineering.

Edward Thompson hopes to go to Russia next summer to learn Russian and to gain work experience.  He also aims to carry out some disaster relief training with RedR and do some work experience in Spain, during his year abroad.  Richard Van Arkel intends to use the award to learn French or German.  He is also looking into a number of training courses in areas such as management, presentations and report writing.  Tom Mynors plans to go to Europe to examine their approach to transport via a work placement and site visits, and he will learn a European language.

Candidates were required to participate in a range of selection activities that included presentations and interviews by Fellows of The Royal Academy and Sainsbury Management Fellows.

The objective of the awards is to allow ambitious, inspiring engineering undergraduates, who want to become leadership role models, to undertake an accelerated personal development programme. To achieve this, the winners receive £5,000 to implement their personal development plan, devised in collaboration with the Royal Academy, providing them with the opportunity to acquire the skills needed to fulfil their potential.

The event took place from 27 to 28 March at Warwick University.  Fifty-six students were shortlisted to attend and 29 candidates were selected for the awards.