Duke of Edinburgh praises vital work of engineers

Duke says engineers vital in solving growing population challenges

The Duke of Edinburgh has praised the vital work of engineers explaining that they hold the key to meeting the challenges of the world's growing population.

Speaking on the BBC Today programme, the Duke outlined that it is "curious" that there is not a Nobel Prize for the discipline.

He noted that engineers perform such an essential function that it is hard to imagine life without them. He said: “The whole of our infrastructure, from sewers to power supplies and communication, everything that wasn’t invented by God is invented by an engineer.”

The Duke said engineering had contributed to the post-war recovery and would help solve future problems.

In the interview, he said his interest in engineering began when he was a naval officer "surrounded by engineering" on warships.

Referring to the post-World War Two era, he said: "we were completely skint, seriously badly damaged and the only way we were going to recover a sort of viability was through engineering".

Asked about the future, the Duke suggested that it would be engineers who could decide how a population boom could be managed without damaging the environment. He said: “The human population of the world is growing and is occupying more space, and it has got to be accommodated somehow or other.

“What I think most people would like to see is that it accommodates a certain amount of the natural world as well as the human world and everything that we require to keep it going.

“But somehow or other that balance to try and fit as many people on to this globe as comfortably as possible without them doing too much damage - I think ultimately it's going to be engineers who are going to decide that.”