IChemE Matters – March 2025

For she’s a jolly good Fellow

Mark Apsey, IChemE president

FIRSTLY, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to IChemE’s newly elected Fellows, including our CEO, Yvonne Baker! Achieving fellowship is a prestigious milestone that recognises your seniority and your significant and demonstrable contribution to chemical, biochemical, and process engineering. I encourage all our members to consider and plan for their own professional goals, whatever they may be.

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a round table on cybersecurity at the Society of Operations Engineers in London. It was an insightful discussion that brought together security experts and engineers from across our diverse sector. We delved into the critical question: how can we leverage the latest technology without compromising our operational control systems? And much insightful discussion followed (see p20).

Next comes an important reminder to all members: nominations are open for the Board of Trustees and Congress elections. The deadline for submissions is 4 March. Don’t miss this opportunity to shape the future of our institution: www.icheme.org/trustee-election/

Another new and exciting professional learning initiative launched for members last month, run in association with patent and trademark attorneys, Beck Greener. This comprehensive CPD series offers invaluable insights into Intellectual Property (IP). With expert guidance from top IP professionals, real-world case studies, and practical strategies, members will gain the knowledge needed to protect their innovations and navigate the complexities of IP with confidence: www.icheme.org/beck-greener-events

Our membership is truly fantastic. I am privileged to participate in many IChemE events, and I am always struck by the richness of conversation, kindness, and inclusivity we display towards each other. In an uncertain and increasingly polarised world, it is reassuring to be part of our great community. Thank you for making IChemE a beacon of collaboration and support.

I always welcome any feedback, and value any input or ideas – you can contact me at president@icheme.org

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Enjoying the cites

Duncan Lugton, head of policy and impact

In THE early days of 2025, the UK winter has been dark, wet, and cold but I’ve been heartened to see some of our policy work bearing fruit.

Back in 2024, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee held an inquiry into engineering biology, a field that involves designing and making biological systems, molecules, or organisms for a range of useful applications – for instance, to make new materials or run processes more efficiently. Engineering biology is a hot topic and has been identified as a priority technology for the UK. There’s an important chemical engineering perspective to bring to bear on this subject, and IChemE were really pleased to submit evidence to the inquiry to make sure our voice was heard.

Our evidence submission (https://bit.ly/4gAaLTT) focused on the challenges for scaling up innovation in this area, and how the government can address these. Our recommendations included setting up a network of accessible technology innovation centres to provide access to the right experts and equipment needed to move forward with product development; facilitating industry-academia exchange programmes; and changes to the requirements made of research proposals and to the strategic emphasis of UK research funding bodies. We were delighted to see that the final report entitled Don’t fail to scale: seizing the opportunity of engineering biology (https://bit.ly/42VQ2qu) cites our submission and picks up many of its themes, right down to it having a special focus on the importance of taking promising innovations from the laboratory through to being deployed commercially (I was also pleased to see TCE’s coverage of the topic getting a couple of mentions!). The policy team are now eagerly awaiting the government’s response to the report, which is due shortly. This has certainly lifted my mood.

On a wider scale, there’s much to look forward to in the rest of the year, including the exciting prospect of an election in Australia in the near future, a busy schedule of roundtables, and the UK government’s eagerly awaited industrial strategy. I look forward to updating you on it.

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Dylan Sherman

EACH year IChemE co-sponsors an engineer to spend three months at the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) where they research and produce a briefing paper for policymakers. We caught up with Dylan Sherman to ask about his experiences as the latest Ashok Kumar Fellow and his briefing paper on next generation mobile technology.

Dylan, the briefing note you helped prepare explains there is a race for economies to develop 6G wireless communication technology and that it could prove pivotal for the use of AI and smart cities. How will it impact chemical and process engineers?
There are two key elements. The first is interconnectivity and the second is intelligence. Being more connected anywhere, be that in the air or on remote sites, is really important for engineers. 6G will enable people to better connect and that’s really important for effective engineering work. We need a lot of capacity to be able to compute quickly and move large amounts of data around securely. For chemical engineering, when it comes to plant design, 6G may also improve the deployment of more reliable and secure local networks to control equipment remotely, “cut the wires” from server centres, or begin to support networks that control autonomous plant infrastructure.

Why did you apply for the fellowship and what did you find interesting?
I studied nanoengineering at the University of Oxford. Before that, my background was law. I was really interested in blending what I did as a corporate lawyer with understanding the theoretical drivers between science and innovation. Policy is a really exciting way of seeing that technical work being brought to life within government.

The fellowship ended up coinciding with the election period. This gave me the chance to contribute to something called the POST horizon scan, which was a series of overview articles covering key areas of interest and priority related to science for our parliament.

I ended up writing a second brief on artificial intelligence for national defence. One of the things I enjoyed the most about doing the fellowship is the huge amount of external engagement that POST undertakes for every brief. I conducted a range of interviews with businesses, phone carriers, government agencies, and leading academics. I was really excited by the willingness of the community to be involved and try to make sure that we put together the most informative and representative document on the topic for policymakers and parliamentarians. In terms of the experience as a whole, it’s about making sure that the information that all policymakers receive is understandable and comprehendible, and that we keep communicating the difficulties and nuances of science to people that don’t have a technical background. That’s something that POST is focused on. I really enjoyed trying to finesse my skills at that.

How has the experience shaped what you want to do in the future?
It’s really enthused me to try to stay engaged in public sector strategy and championing science within that. It’s certainly something I’m looking at getting back into while I’m back here in Australia.

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Dylan’s POSTnote on 6G: https://bit.ly/40VV4Rq; his note on AI and cybersecurity: https://bit.ly/42RigCH; more info on the fellowship: https://www.icheme.org/ashok