The 2008 award recognises the achievements of the Speed – Scottish Power Electronics and Electric Drives – laboratory and consortium, that Miller (above) set up in 1986. Speed brings together academics and industrial partners from around the world to collaborate on electrical machine developments and applications.

The Speed laboratory is also a leading centre for theoretical work on the design and control of electrical machines, and electromagnetic analysis. A new laboratory was opened at the university last year.

The Speed consortium now has around 60 members including Caterpillar, GE, Robert Bosch and Rolls Royce. The members have access to software tools developed at the laboratory for designing electric motors. They can also tap the knowledge of the laboratory’s team of experts.

"This award reflects a durable and successful engineering collaboration between the academic and industrial world, an association which has long been championed in Scotland," Miller says. "I’m especially proud that many of our team are Glasgow graduates, including myself.

"We have built on foundations laid here since 1923 – the time of Bernard Hague, James Watt professor, who provided some of the links between our modern methods and those of Maxwell and Kelvin," he adds.

Miller is the third Briton to win the Tesla Award since it was established in 1975. The 1986 recipient was Professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College for his contributions to the development and understanding of electric machines, especially linear induction motors. And in 2001, the award went to Professor Steve Williamson of the University of Manchester for his work on developing advanced mathematical models and computational tools for induction machine design.