Training centres focus on advanced manufacturing

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is co-funding five new Industrial Doctorate Centres covering key areas of advanced manufacturing vital to growth in two of the UK’s biggest industrial sectors.

The EPSRC centres will help students taking an engineering doctorate (EngD) to understand the needs of business, how to be entrepreneurs, as well as training them in the most innovative future technologies in advanced manufacturing.

Launching the new centres during a visit to the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University, Willetts said: ’These new centres focus on key areas of advanced manufacturing that are vital to the UK’s major industrial sectors, including the aerospace and automotive industry.’

Each centre will support up to 100 doctorate students over four years and are based in university departments with a strong track record of working in partnership with industry.

More than 50 per cent of the funding for each centre will come from industrial partners with EPSRC providing £1.25m per centre. The companies involved in these centres include JLR, Rolls-Royce, Tata Steel, Timet, Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing and a range of other partners.