On Wednesday, after months of planning, the IET’s main headquarters - Savoy Place in London - was officially opened by HRH The Princess Royal. After its major refurbishment the building has actually been open for nearly a year, but as you can imagine Royal diaries are busy things and it can be tricky to schedule an official visit!

I must confess that initially I thought it would be a bit odd having an official opening so many months after the doors opened again - but I was wrong. It was a perfect opportunity to reflect on how much has changed, both within the building, but also within engineering since 1909 when we first adopted Savoy Place as our home.


HRH The Princess Royal was charming, very interested in the building and in everyone she met. She has been to Savoy Place before, as our guest and also as President of RedR, the disaster relief charity. She was much more petite than I’d expected (I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to say that – I might get into trouble with The Palace!), but despite her stature she is a commanding presence.


While she was with us she met a number of groups ranging from the architects and builders who worked on the refurbishment of Savoy Place, to the Faraday Challenge and First Lego League winners. We brought together groups that we felt would show her the breadth of work that the IET supports, from advising on government policy to awarding scholarships and prizes to exceptional individuals and ideas. She spent time with everyone, too long sometimes for the comfort of her team who knew she had to go on to another event, yet despite that she wouldn’t be rushed and never once made people feel that she was anything other than completely focused on them.


She unveiled a plaque that will eventually take pride of place in the reception of the building, and she helped seal a time capsule (that we’re still not quite sure where we’ll bury!). The most interesting items in the capsule were ideas submitted by children describing what they thought engineering would be contributing in fifty years’ time. My favourite was the meal machine that would take any request for food and provide an alternative, healthier recipe.


It was a great event. It was a celebration of the wonderful changes to the building, but more than that, a celebration of engineering and of the IET. It was also a fantastic example of one team working. The Savoy Place team were amazing and ensured that the whole event ran like clockwork, and the Events and Marketing teams from Stevenage did a huge amount of work in a very short period of time to create the programme, design gifts and invitations, and manage the stringent security around the guest list.