The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal association for geotechnical engineers in the UK.
The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal association for geotechnical engineers in the UK.
The Rankine Lecture is widely viewed as the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics and was first held in 1961. The Rankine Lecture is held in London in March each year, and in recent years is webcast live to a global geotechnical audience
The Rankine Lecture is widely viewed as the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics. It commemorates William John Macquorn Rankine, Professor of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University, who was one of the first engineers in the UK to make a significant contribution to soil mechanics. He is best known for his theory for the earth pressure on retaining walls.
The Rankine Lecture is held in March each year. In even-numbered years, the lecturer is from the UK. In odd-numbered years, the lecturer is from outside the UK. Each lecture is usually published in Géotechnique. A list of all the lecturers (and links to their published papers, where available) is given below:
Emerald Publishing (formerly ICE Publishing) has made the Rankine Lecture papers free to read from the start of the lectures in 1961 thorough to 2002. The papers can be accessed by clicking on the doi link for the paper, and then clicking on the ‘Open PDF’ button in the ICE Virtual Library page.
Papers from 2003 onwards can be purchased from Emerald Publishing via the link for each paper. Where the post-2002 papers are free to read via open access agreements this is shown against the relevant paper.
2025 GE Awards: Submission deadline extended
The deadline for submissions to the 2025 Ground Engineering (GE) Awards has been extended to 31 January 2025 to ensure the industry is fully represented.
