Former High Court judge and civil engineer Sir Vivian Ramsey has this week been awarded the prestigious Louis Prangey Award, the highest recognition for outstanding service to FIDIC and the global consulting engineering industry.

Named after FIDIC’s founding president, Louis Prangey, the award is only given to those who have given significant service to FIDIC and the profession of consulting engineering. Recipients of the award are considered to be a role model for the consulting engineering industry and the recipient of the 2023 Prangey Award has been endorsed by the FIDIC board and the past presidents council, in accordance with the FIDIC byelaws.

Sir Vivian’s career has been an outstanding one. Both a trained lawyer and a civil engineer, he has experience working across the four continents and currently travels and works in various countries in Europe the Middle East and South-East Asia.

He started his career in 1972 as a civil engineer and for eight years he worked for a consulting engineering firm as a civil and structural engineer and qualified as a charted civil engineer. He worked on site in building, offshore and industrial projects and has worked on several prestigious infrastructure projects as designer and resident engineer in the UK, Africa, West Indies and the Middle East.

Sir Vivian became a Queen’s Counsel in 1992 and served as a High Court Judge from 2005-2014 presiding over civil court cases and Crown Court criminal trials in England and Wales. He received a knighthood in 2007 from Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2009, he was the main host of the FIDIC Global Infrastructure Conference welcome reception at the Royal Court of Justice in London and since then, he has taken up various roles to support FIDIC initiatives and events, including speaking at various conferences and presiding over the review of several of the FIDIC Project Awards.

He has also contributed to the development and market acceptance of the Dispute Adjudication Board concept in major construction and infrastructure projects around the world. He is also a visiting professor at the University of King’s College, London where FIDIC hosts its contracts summer school programme.

Sir Vivian also chairs the FIDIC Credentialing (FCL) management board and has held this role since August 2020 and is one of its founding members. Since 2020, he has played a critical role in developing and implementing the governance structure of FCL and in promoting the market acceptance of the global FIDIC Credentialing initiative.

His critical reasoning and insights into both the legal considerations as well as the operational aspects of FCL’s work have been invaluable. Through his direction, he has helped to strengthen the harmonious implementation of the governance procedures and processes which are in line with FIDIC’s values and objectives.

He has been outstanding in terms of his leadership, the ambassadorial role he has played over the years and the operational support he has tirelessly given. This in turn, has over the course of the last three years, helped assure the success of the five certification programmes as well as of FCL in general.

Sir Vivian Ramsey is a truly worthy recipient of the 2023 Prangey Award.