No more heroes?

At which I think most reading this will raise a hearty 'hear hear!'. However, in the same speech, Her Majesty touched on a fact that has long dogged attempts to improve the image of engineering in this country when she said: "These days, engineering is seldom a solo effort". This statement is undoubtedly true. However, it does fly in the face of the emphasis engineering in the UK has long put on celebrating individual engineers rather than collaborative efforts. Thus, when asked to offer an example for young engineers to follow, we tend to reach for a Brunel, a Telford or a Stephenson. There is nothing wrong with this per se. These were great men whose achievements deserve celebration. But the awkward fact remains that they all died more than 150 years ago. Inevitably, then, relying on them as the 'poster boys' of UK engineering tends to give the profession a rather old-fashioned image. These men, of course, were pioneers who lived in a time before huge corporations, meaning that they had to become both engineers and entrepreneurs from necessity. The modern engineer, by contrast, is often subsumed within a corporate structure that, while it affords greater support and finance, also tends to highlight collective over individual achievement. Huge strides are being taken by UK engineers within electronics, aerospace, automotive and defence firms, but we tend to hear about the end results rather than the individuals behind them. Eureka, of course, is happy to celebrate personal achievement, as the individual categories of the British Engineering Excellence Awards show. However, this is more to do with a desire to give recognition where otherwise it might not be forthcoming than with creating idols. Perhaps, then, it is time to stop looking for such idols and to seek instead to celebrate the companies, corporations and organisations that foster them? Yes, engineer-entrepreneurs still exist (the obvious example being Sir James Dyson), but they are rare. Surely an emphasis on the collective, collaborative and global nature of the profession rather than on the individual would be more productive than a constant - and often fruitless - search for engineering 'heroes'?