State-of-the art Centre for Innovation in Rail underway
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:00:00 GMT
Regional Growth Fund grant clears way for major railway research and training centre
The Government is providing crucial funding enabling the University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Innovation in Rail (CIR) to go ahead. This £4 million Regional Growth Fund grant will be matched by the project partners. The overall investment in the project is over £20 million.
The CIR will be based within the internationally-renowned Institute of Railway Research (IRR) at the University and will build on the Institute’s strategic partnership with RSSB, with the support of the National Skills Academy for Rail Engineering (NSARE) and technology partners, Unipart Rail and Omnicom Engineering.
The Institute was formed at the University of Huddersfield in 2012 and the RGF funding will take the size of the team to 40 research staff. Its Director, Professor Simon Iwnicki, expects the CIR to capitalise on the best of the Institute’s research output and embed this within the UK railway industry.
“The research and training carried out by the Centre will contribute to the strategic needs of the railway industry as outlined in the Rail Technical Strategy and will increase the level of innovation in the industry and reduce the barriers to knowledge transfer and reduce industry costs,” said Professor Iwnicki.
The new facility will build upon the world‐class product design and R&D capability of the project partners, to provide industry and academia with training, research and expert services to develop and improve critical engineering interfaces in the rail industry. The IRR’s Assistant Director and CIR project manager Dr Paul Allen explained that the Centre will have a dedicated team comprising academics, researchers, business development staff and administrators.
“This will include all aspects of vehicle design and track construction to increase safety and reliability, reduce asset costs and drive performance improvement of the railway system. Priority will be given to assisting regional SMEs to develop competitive products and services that can be brokered into the railway supply chain, and result in new job creation and up‐skilling of the workforce,” said Dr Allen.
Professor Iwnicki added: “We are delighted that the Government has agreed to help fund this initiative and I would like to thank all our partners for their support in putting the proposal together.”
“It has been an excellent effort by the Huddersfield team to secure the RGF funding. This funding will further enable the Strategic Partnership between ourselves and Huddersfield to expand to meet the growing and challenging needs of the rail industry. We are proud to be associated with this initiative.” – Colin Dennis, Director of Policy, Research and Risk, RSSB.
“We are extremely proud to be associated with the new Centre for Innovation in Rail. This initiative will bring significant benefits to the region and create opportunities to develop and introduce new products and technologies to the global rail market.” – John Clayton, Unipart Group Director.
“Omnicom would like thank the University of Huddersfield on the excellent work on securing the RGF funding. This represents a significant step in the investment in the railways in the Yorkshire region and we are proud to be a supporter of this initiative.” – Stirling Kimkeran, CEO of Omnicom Engineering.
“NSARE is proud to support this excellent initiative, which will complement our objective of ensuring that the industry has the people capability to deliver the Rail Technical Strategy.” – Gil Howarth, NSARE Chief Executive.
