The Set Awards, 2006

The Science, Engineering & Technology Student of the Year Awards are described as the most important awards for science and engineering undergraduates. They are open to students at universities in the British Isles, including the Republic of Ireland. Although these awards have been in existence since 1998, hitherto Mathematics has not been represented, which concerned the Mathematics community, particularly HoDoMS. That changed in 2006 with the first entries for the Mathematics prize, sponsored by the World Leadership Forum. The judges were nominated by the IMA and the LMS. There were nine entries from eight universities, representing all of the component parts of the British Isles. The description “Mathematics” is interpreted widely and is more like the Mathematics, Statistics and Operational Research badge which we (buttoo few others) know so well. If the number of entries was perhaps disappointing, their quality was not. All were excellent entries, describing projects varying from pure mathematics to applications in finance, operational research and modelling drug smuggling. This itself shows the breadth of the discipline…