News Archive
Engagement at many levels
- Tuesday September 22, 2026
The IHE’s policy and engagement manager, Cyrena Lafronte, looks back over a very busy year so far.
A core part of my role is ensuring the IHE is visible and has an active voice across the sector. This year has featured everything from parliamentary meetings to industry conferences and forums.
The first event I attended this year was TE Live hosted by EngineeringUK at the IET Savoy Place, where I heard fi sthand about the work being done to inspire young people into engineering careers, and the challenges that remain.
At Interchange26 I had the opportunity to take part in roundtables covering digital transport, intelligent mobility, and the future of infrastructure planning.
I have also been able to represent the IHE at the House of Commons at the APPG Cycling and Walking and APPG Transport Safety meeting, where then roads minister Lilian Greenwood MP set out the case for the new road safety strategy.
I later returned to Parliament for the ITS UK Parliamentary Reception and the PACTS Council of Members Meeting, where a presentation on maximising learning from child road death, delivered by researchers from the University of Nottingham and UCL, offered a valuable reminder of why this work matters so much.
I also represented IHE at the Transport Technology Forum, with real-world technology demonstrations and consultative sessions on connected vehicle services, opened by IHE senior vice president Darren Capes (now IHE President). I also had the privilege of representing IHE at the Women’s Engineering Society Annual Conference in Birmingham for two days, which covered a range of topics from AI in mobility to career progression and included one session that has stayed with me since: A candid look at owning your impact in the later stages of a career.
The common threads to all these events have been collaboration and the value of bringing policy, engineering practice, and lived experience in the same room. I look forward to continuing the many conversations started over the past months, and to representing IHE at the events still to come this year.