FIDIC has announced the winners of the 2024 FIDIC Member Association Excellence Awards at a glittering gala dinner event held in Geneva on 10 September 2024.
The awards, now in their fifth year, highlight the achievements and successes of FIDIC’s international member associations and their work representing the global engineering consulting industry. This year the judging panel chose winners across four categories – People and Culture, Advocacy, Inspiring the Next Generation and Showcasing Value.
Speaking at the awards ceremony in Geneva, FIDIC president Catherine Karakatsanis said: “These awards showcase the significant achievements and successes of FIDIC’s brilliant global member associations and the excellent work that they do in representing the global consulting engineering industry. Our members work day-in, day-out on behalf of their member firms and we are delighted to be able to pay tribute to this work through these awards. All the winning entries demonstrate how member associations address key issues facing their industry and platform them to a wider audience, helping to raise the profile of this crucial industry sector.”
The MA Excellence Award for People and Culture Initiatives was won by ACE New Zealand for developing an initiative to tackle mental health in the workplace, an increasingly urgent systemic issue, and also an industry-leading diversity programme which has seen 60 CEOs and business owners signing up and committing to creating diverse, equitable and inclusive organisations. The judges said that the Mindspace initiative and The Diversity Agenda Accord addressed important and urgent issues and their award entries were backed up with excellent supporting information.
The winner of the MA Excellence Award for Advocacy Initiatives was the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) for their Campaign to ‘Fix the Research and Development Tax’ and the Engineering and Public Works Roadshow. ACEC impressed the judges with a national, integrated advocacy communications campaign focused on urging governmental action to fix an R&D tax and also a roadshow which reminded the public and policymakers what good infrastructure means to society, the economy and the environment, by holding public events which showcased dynamic engineering projects around the country.
The MA Excellence Award for Inspiring the Next Generation was won by the Swiss Association of Consulting Engineering Firms, for their Engineers@School initiative. Aimed at attracting more engineers to the industry, the initiative fostered member engagement within the engineering community, encouraged proactive engagement with schools, showcased that gender is not a barrier to success in engineering and promoted the sector’s crucial role in addressing climate change. The judges said that this was a very strong entry and it was great to see more promotion of people coming into engineering as this was addressing a problem that was an important challenge globally given the shortages of those entering the industry.
The winner of the MA Excellence Award for Showcasing Value was the Consulting Engineers Association of India for their CEAI Compendium, a campaign that showcased the spectacular engineering accomplishments made in India since it gained its independence nearly eight decades ago. It also highlighted a roadmap for the consultancy of the future, demonstrating not only the progress made over that time, but also engendering a sense of pride to encourage the sector to strive to achieve even higher levels of excellence. The judges were impressed by an entry that promotes the significant value that engineers bring to society and an initiative which is dedicated to the spirit of the unsung Indian engineers who triumphed over formidable challenges.
(Attached photo shows Helen Davidson, CEO of ACE New Zealand (centre) and Penny Kneebone, chief executive of Tonkin + Taylor (right) being presented with their Member Association Excellence Award for People and Culture by FIDIC president Catherine Karakatsanis (left).
FIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, is the global representative body for national associations of consulting engineers and represents over one million engineering professionals and 40,000 firms in around 100 countries worldwide. The buildings and infrastructure sector in which FIDIC members work contributes around US$36trillion to global GDP.
