Superstar engineers and fantastic fiction writers collaborate on the brand-new Inventive Podcast

The University of Salford announces the launch of the brand-new Inventive Podcast featuring the incredible stories of engineers whose innovative work is transforming the world we live in.

Over the course of the eleven-episode series, Professor Cox meets incredible Inventive engineers including, in the first episode, electronics engineer, Shrouk el- Attar, a refugee and campaigner for LGBT rights, recently awarded the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Prize for her work in femtech, smart tech that improves the lives of cis women and trans men, at the Institution of Engineering and Technology Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2021; structural engineer Roma Agrawal designed the foundation and spire of London’s The Shard; and chemical engineer Askwar Hilonga who didn’t have access to clean water growing up in his village in Tanzania, but has gone on to win the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for his water purification nano filter.

This podcast is not just for engineers and techies! Engineering is typically represented in the media by historical narratives or 'boy’s toys’ approach – biggest, longest, tallest. We know that has limited appeal, so we set ourselves a challenge to reach a wider audience. Engineering needs to tell better stories with people at the centre. So, we’ve interwoven factual interviews with stories commissioned from fantastic writers.

“Engineering is so central to our lives, and yet as a subject it’s strangely hidden in plain sight. I came up with idea of Inventive to explore new ways of telling the story of engineering by mixing fact and fiction,” commented Professor Trevor Cox, Inventive Host and an Acoustical Engineer from the University of Salford. He went on to comment, “Given the vast number of podcasts out there, it’s surprising how few shows focus on engineering (beyond tech)”

C M Taylor’s piece The Night Builder, is inspired by structural engineer Roma Agrawal and includes a Banksy-like figure who works with concrete. Science Fiction writer Emma Newman’s Healing the Fractured is inspired by engineer Greg Bowie who makes trauma plates to treat broke bones and is set in a dystopian future, reminiscent of Handmaid’s Tale, with the engineer as an unexpected hero.

The series will debut on Wednesday 23 June with 6 new episodes dropping across the summer. We’ll have a break and be back with the final five episodes in October.