MERIT 2012 was the 22nd time that the MERIT competition, supported by the Institution of Civil Engineers and CITB ConstructionSkills and based at Loughborough University has been run.

MERIT simulates the running of a construction company and trains the participants in company, business and financial management in a construction context and in a competitive environment. To-date over 23,000 have participated in MERIT which has been running since 1988.

The highest six teams in MERIT 2012 fought out the final over two days at Loughborough University’s Civil Engineering Department on 3rd and 4th April.

The winners and MERIT Champions for 2012 were a team from Arups named Impossible Mission Force.

The winning Arup team is from their Solihull office. The team leader, Areeb Khan is a graduate engineer and the other five members (Tom Price, Callum O’Connell, Scott Hadgkiss, Mat Barnett and Nicola Bodman) are technicians who joined Arup on leaving school. Each of the technicians has completed both a Higher National Certificate and Diploma (HNC and HND) in Civil Engineering as part of their training at Arup. They are all now working towards attaining EngTech TMICE, IEng MICE, or CEng MICE qualifications with the ICE. The whole team are working on the HS2 project.

The ICE Champion’s Silver Salver and the cash prize from CITB ConstructionSkills were presented by Hugh Ferguson

This was the second time in MERIT’s 22 years that Arup had won, the first being in 1996. Arups won the Sponsors Award last year which was received by Nigel Hailey, himself a past MERIT player from 1989.Nigel returned this year to deliver the after dinner speech at the Final Dinner with inspiring tales for this year’s finalists and, of course, to support the Arup team.

Impossible Mission Force were well ahead of the pack and held the leading position through the final.

The final positions were:

Aurecon were presented with the Sponsors Award at the Final Dinner by Matthew Parker, representing the ICE’s Management Board, and Paul Gaze of CITB ConstructionSkills who had provided a cash prize for the MERIT 2012 Champions. This was the second occasion that the Sponsors Award has left the UK, the previous being the MERIT Champions and winner of the Sponsors Award from Australia in 2008, Calibre Projects of Perth.

In MERIT 2012 Aurecon entered six teams from their Australian and New Zealand offices and two from South Africa. Aurecon adopted an interesting approach in using MERIT to create dialogue between their various offices. The team members of each team were located in different offices across timezones and were communicating with each other remotely. Some of the Aurecon finalists only physically met their team mates when they appeared at the final. Both the Aurecon teams that had made the final travelled all the way from Australia, sponsored by Aurecon, to take part in the final.

Atkins have been the biggest sponsors of MERIT in the competitions history having sponsored 192 teams involving 1056 staff over the years. A team from Atkins were the Champions in 2007 and Atkins have won the Sponsors Award three times in 2002, 2003 and 2009. One of the two Atkins teams competing in the 2012 final were from their Hong Kong office and this was the second consecutive year that a team from that office were in the final. Amy Yeung who attended this year’s final is the sister of Anna Yeung who attended last year. Lots of MERIT experience in that family. Supporting the two Atkins teams at the final was Mark Jackson

It was the first time that a Skanska team made the final and they seemed to enjoy it enough to promise to be back in force in 2013 looking for the title. Ed Pointer came along to encourage the Skanska team who had started the final in second place with all to play for.

The finalists were looked after at Loughborough University by Jonathan Higgins, Francis Edum-Fotwe and Professor Tony Thorpe and Professor Ron McCaffer.

Hugh Ferguson from the Institution of Civil Engineers presents the Silver Salver to the MERIT 2012 Champions: Impossible Mission Force from Arups

And the cash prize from CITB ConstructionSkills

The Sponsors' Award