Martin Knights honoured with BTS award
Jun 2010
Shani Wallis, TunnelTalk
- At the BTS meeting on Thursday evening (17 June, 2010), Chairman Bob Ibell presented the 2010 James Clark Medal to Martin Knights, Immediate Past President of the ITA and recently moved to the Halcrow Group.
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Martin Knights
- The coveted UK industry award is presented in recognition of a contemporary achievement in tunnelling, an innovation or responsibility for a large tunnelling project, or a major contribution to the tunnelling industry. Knights qualifies on all criteria.
- As a Batchelor gradualte of civil engineering from University of Manchester, Knights has been part of many major tunnelling projects both in the UK and internationally. These include the planning and design of more than 75km of cable tunnels in the London area; Project Management of the 6km long twin-tube Dublin Port Road Tunnel in Ireland; construction of the Drakensburg Pumped Storage Scheme in South Africa; design of new underground facilities for the LHC nuclear physics experiment machine at the CERN laboratory in Geneva Switzerland, and development of the Egnatia Highway in Northern Greece which includes more than 30km of twin-tube four-lane highway tunnels on the 800km route.
- As the 12th President of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA), Knights has overseen in his three years as President an expansion of the number of member nations from 51 to 58 currently (to 63 by end of 2010) and an increase in the Association's list of corporate and individual members. There has also been a reinvigoration of the ITA Working Groups and the establishment of two new Committees - ITACET, the Committee on Education and Training, the ITA University network, and ITA-CUS, for the promotion of underground space - plus the potential for a new Committee for Tunnel Technology and establishment of the ITACET Foundation for the development of education and training on tunnelling and underground space use. At the 2010 ITA General Assembly and Congress in Vancouver in May, Knights passed Presidency of the Association to Professor In-Mo Lee of South Korea.
- In making a career move this week from Jacobs Engineering to Halcrow, Knights joins one of the leading UK consultant practices and continues a line of association between Halcrow and the ITA. Two previous Presidents from the UK - Sir Alan Muir Wood and Colin Kirkland, ITA Presidents from 1974-1977 and 1989-1992 respectively - were both long-term employees and senior Partners of Halcrow.
- Knights is also a Trustee of London's Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe, the Trustees of which were recently awarded this year's The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service - the MBE for volunteer groups. The Brunel Museum is dedicated to the Brunels' and their great achievements, notably the Thames Tunnel. The aim is to bring greater understanding of the Brunels' daring engineering and radical thinking to new audiences.
- Knights' association with tunnelling, geotechnical engineering and the promotion of the use of underground space for sustainable urban development and national economic growth is set to continue, as is his connection with the ITA as its immediate past president.
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Career Moves - TunnelTalk, Jun 2010
Shortlist for Crossrail running tunnels contracts - TunnelTalk, Dec 2009
Spectacular excavations for physics research - TunnelTalk, Aug 2001
Interview with ITA Presidents - TunnelTalk, May 2010
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