Celebrating engineering excellence: the Churchill Medal award 2023

The annual Churchill Medal Award (CMA) ceremony was held on Thursday, 2 November 2023 at IET London: Savoy Place.

This year, we were fortunate to have received a remarkable array of nominations, leading to the selection of five exceptionally deserving finalists.

The mission of the Joint PEIs is to inspire the broader public to join the engineering and technology industry, thereby advancing the global engineering community. Our finalists have not only left an indelible mark in their respective domains but have also enriched the entire engineering world.

This year’s CMA was won by HMS Audacious & C-Squadron DTXG Main Vent Repair Team, Submarine Service and Diving and Threat Exploitation Group, The Royal Navy.

HMS Audacious’ unprecedented 11-month Mediterranean Deployment was in direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They were tasked to repair the recurrent failures faced by the Main Vent Operating Mechanisms inside partially flooded Main Ballast Tanks as these defects significantly impacted Audacious’ ability to safely conduct covert operations.

In addition to the environmental constraints, Audacious had to remain within a fixed readiness profile throughout, which meant the team had to be able to fully revert the system or complete the repair within a limited timeframe to enable sailing. This tremendous technical challenge required significant adaptations to existing processes and the generation of bespoke procedures as similar repairs had only ever previously been attempted in a UK Dry Dock, with full access into the Main Ballast Tanks for specialist technicians to work on the mechanisms.

From arrival to completion of testing, the entire process was completed in 19 days. In successfully conducting these highly complex operations underwater, the team ensured that Audacious remained in theatre delivering vital National Tasking for a further 6 months.

The Audacious team shared: “It’s a massive privilege and we feel really honored and proud of ourselves to have won such a prestigious award. A lot of the day to day jobs that we do we never talk about so it’s a great acknowledgment and recognition for what we do. It makes us proud for ourselves on the platform and the divers who supported us throughout the deployment.”

Commanding Officer of HMS Audacious, Commander James Howard, said: “The dedication, innovation and engineering professionalism demonstrated by the team in the face of extreme pressure and under challenging conditions is truly outstanding. Their actions made a direct and significant contribution to operational availability and strategic capability, and they are considered highly worthy of recognition.”

This year’s exceptional finalists were:

• Staff Sergeant Charlie Pengilley, Corps of Royal Engineers, The British Army
• High Risk Operations Cell, The Royal Air Force
• 1710 NAS Data Exploitation Team - comprising a team of three from The Royal Navy, and one Ministry of Defence Civil Servant within 1710 Naval Air Squadron
• Lieutenant Commander Anthony Gilroy, The Royal Navy

We congratulate all the finalists and the winning team and would like to thank all who attended this year’s ceremony and contributed to the evening being a huge success.

The Churchill Medal is awarded jointly by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST), the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the Institution of Royal Engineers (InstRE), the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) and the British Computer Society (BCS)