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Two Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) Fellows receive recognition from European Agricultural Engineers (EurAgEng) for outstanding excellence

Two Fellows of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) have received European recognition for their outstanding work in the field of agricultural engineering. 

The awards are presented annually to members in appreciation for all that they have done and continue to achieve for the Society. 

Fellow Dr Bill Day of Hexham, Northumberland received a Recognition Award for his work in developing, promoting and expanding ‘Biosystems Engineering’, owned by IAgrE since 2006 and the official scientific journal of EurAgEng. 

Bill became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal in 2007 and since then has encouraged high quality submissions such that the Journal now receives over 1200 submissions a year. This has enabled the Biosystems Engineering journal to establish an extremely high standard and improve its international standing. The journal’s Impact Factor, which is used by many to indicate quality, has increased during this  period in charge from less than 1 to 4.123. 

Bill is retiring from the Editorship, and with this award EurAgEng wanted to thank him for his efforts in expanding and developing the readership, quality and standing of Biosystems Engineering internationally. 

Honorary Fellow Professor Richard Godwin was presented with a EurAgEng Award of Merit for Scientific Understanding, which is a bronze statuette – a replica of the statue that stood in the main building at the Silsoe Research Institute. 

Professor Godwin’s research has been a major component relating to identifying major issues concerning the health of arable soils, a subject that is now attracting considerable interest.  His work has under-pinned approaches to, for example, controlled traffic farming, improved tillage methods and cultivations aimed at maintaining soil structure, conserving and enhancing organic matter content and minimising emissions of greenhouse gases.  

A major strength of his approach has been relating research findings to practical methods of addressing issues relevant, mainly, to agricultural engineering problems but also in wider applications.  The already existing work on vehicle/soil interactions has been extended to off-highway vehicle and equipment design with specialist facilities developed initially at Silsoe and now at Cranfield University. 

At Harper Adams University, Godwin has led the team that has established an experimental site for examining tillage/traffic interactions.  The long-term (over 10 years) nature of this site means that it is now, being used to examine the environmental effects of such interactions alongside the agronomic and crop production implications.