The Presidents’ Choice is a web-based source of prestigious and practical papers in engineering. It includes transcripts of addresses by the recent Presidents of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and of the Thomas Hawksley lecturers. It is possible that further prestige lectures will be added in future.
However, it also publishes papers which are deemed to have practical value to working engineers, but which are not the reporting of original research nor scholarly reviews of an area (these are the province of the journals of the Proceedings of the IMechE). Nor are they journalistic or simply ‘opinion’ pieces. Rather, they are technical papers, reviews or analyses derived from engineering experience.
All articles are free for anyone to access – please note the disclaimer, terms and conditionson use .
For the practical papers, each paper which comes within the scope outlined above, will be reviewed by two past-Presidents of the IMechE or their nominees. The criteria for acceptance will include: soundness of the work, the perceived relevance and usefulness for engineers, the conciseness and clarity of expression, and its professional preparation (e.g. such things as diagram preparation, full bibliographic references, etc, since we are not able to offer sophisticated subediting on the material). There is not a specific paper length requirement, but we would expect the equivalent of 8-12 typeset pages to be the norm.
Authors who wish to submit are asked to follow the procedure which can be found here.
Citation
Authors may wish to cite items found in the Presidents’ Choice in other works. We recommend a method based on the Harvard guidelines – three examples are given, one from each part of the Presidents’ Choice:
(i) LIVERSIDGE, P E, 1997. Creating a better lifestyle - 150 years of engineering contribution of the quality of life, 112th Presidential Address, The Presidents' Choice [online]. Available at: http://presidentschoice.imeche.org.uk/president112.htm London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers. [Accessed -- Date]
(ii) UFF, JOHN, 2002 . Risk in engineering: is it such a bad thing? 90th Thomas Hawksley Memorial Lecture. The Presidents' Choice [online] London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Available at: http://presidentschoice.imeche.org.uk/hawksley090.htm [Accessed Date]
(iii) NEALE, M, October 2006. Learning from rotating machinery failures around the world. The Presidents' Choice [online], 001. London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Available at: http://presidentschoice.imeche.org.uk/practical001.htm [Accessed Date]
Questions or comments should be sent to presidentschoice@imeche.org .uk