WMG News - Latest news from WMG

It has been announced today that Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya has been elected as a Fellow of The Royal Society.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya has been recognised and made a Fellow for his contribution to engineering research and education. As Chairman and founder of WMG his mission, for the last 34 years, has been to improve the competitiveness of industry through innovative collaborative research, educational and knowledge transfer programmes. It has a global reputation in automotive research, the built environment, digital technology and healthcare systems. He was the primary architect of the Integrated Graduate Development Scheme, now considered best practice in CPD by many Universities, and was the first to run the Eng Doc programme on similar principles. In 30 years, the Education programmes have involved over 25,000 individuals and over 500 UK companies. Professor Lord Bhattacharyya has received many international honours, awards and honorary doctorates.

WMG was pleased to host a visit from Lord Younger, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Intellectual Property at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Lord Younger was keen to hear about how WMG develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships. He was also interested to understand the breadth of research undertaken by WMG which leads to the development of innovative products, processes and services.

WMG is a significant partner in the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult. Lord Younger met with Alan Curtis, CEO of the WMG centre HVM Catapult who gave an overview of the research that is undertaken through the WMG centre in light technologies and energy innovation. Lord Younger also met with Dick Elsy, Chief Executive, HVM Catapult and Bob Gilbert, Chairman of the HVM Catapult supervisory board, who gave an overview of the HVM Catapult as a whole.

Birmingham households will be first to pilot new technology being developed by WMG at the University of Warwick that aims to create the next generation of 'Smart' homes with “smart” things working together in a “smart city”.

WMG has secured funding from the Research Councils UK (RCUK) Digital Economy Theme to partner with Birmingham City Council to create the HARRIET (HAT Resource Integration and Enabling Tool) project. This will equip homes with technology and software to create a HAT (Hub-of-all-Things), which aims to assist individuals to better understand their household behaviour and make “smarter” money saving and time saving decisions based on the data they then share on how they act as consumers within their homes see http://hubofallthings.com

The 18-month £485,000 project will work with volunteer households and individuals in Birmingham to collect, analyse and transform the “big data” about product and service consumption produced by modern households on a daily basis that will be stored in individuals’ personal HAT database.

WMG was pleased to welcome a delegation from the Indonesian Embassy. The delegation was led by the Indonesian Ambassador to the UK, H.E.T.M Hamzah Thayeb, supported by the Education and Trade Attachés, Minister Counsellor and the Chairman of the Indonesia Investment Promotion Centre.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, The Ambassador and the delegation were interested to understand the breadth of research undertaken by WMG and how WMG develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships. WMG has recently signed an MOU with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, a key element in which is research collaboration around hybrid and electric systems.

WMG was pleased to welcome a delegation from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) on Friday. The delegation was led by The Honorable Dato’ Seri Paduka Mukhriz Tun Dr Mahathir, Chief Minister of Kedah state in Malaysia, and H.E. Dato’ Ahmad Rasidi Hazizi, the Malaysian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, the delegation were interested to understand how WMG develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships. They were also interested to understand the breadth of research undertaken by WMG.

A recent report by the House of Lords European Union Committee has called for the development of a policy framework, within the EU, aimed at tackling the issue of food waste. One of the key recommendations picked up in the media, was the issue of incentives and promotions such as ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ (known as BOGOF) deals. The report suggested that actions such as BOGOFs can pass food waste on to the consumer and encourage them to buy in larger volumes than required, and has proposed that such tactics should end.

This recommendation has been supported by Professor Jan Godsell, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Strategy at WMG, who has told the Birmingham Post that BOGOF offers ultimately don’t benefit customers, even though they appear to be good value at the time.

Students from the Engineering Society at the University of Warwick took part in The Market Bosworth School’s Science Fair earlier this month, to run a series of workshops with children to teach them about the forces involved in rollercoasters.

The workshops saw the children designing and building an array of impressive small-scale rollercoasters using pipe insulation, complete with stomach churning twists and turns. The creations were then tested using marbles to demonstrate the laws of motion.

Young people in local secondary schools have a chance to demonstrate their computing skills, in a competition for schools and youth groups supported by WMG and Computer Science at the University of Warwick.

Categories in the Challenge IT 2014 event included web design, mobile phone app development, digital animation and robotic applications.

Spearheading the idea was the Coventry branch of the British Computer Society , supported by a range of sponsors including the IET, IBM, OCR, TTS and Capgemini. Several WMG staff took part. Margaret Low is part of the BCS Coventry team that ran the competition, Claire White and Peter Ward from WMG both judged entries.

It was announced today, Friday 28th March 2014, that WMG is to lead a new “EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing”. The Centre will be a partnership between universities of Warwick, Exeter and Cranfield.

Dr Kerry Kirwan, Director of the new EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing, said:

The new Centre will produce the next generation of manufacturing business leaders with a high level understanding of interdisciplinary enterprise, the research experience essential to compete in a global low carbon environment, and an international view of Sustainability and the Circular Economy."

This is the fifth such Doctoral Training Centre (CDTs) to be awarded to University of Warwick leadership by the UK’s research councils. The expected total investment by the research councils for all five CDTS led by Warwick will be around £19 million.

WMG was pleased to host a visit by Nigel Fine, IET Chief Executive and Dolores Byrne, former Vice-President and Trustee of the IET.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, they heard about the breadth of work that the Group undertakes, particularly the engagement with major UK companies to develop innovative products. They were also keen to understand how WMG has developed its education programmes where they were specifically interested to hear about the WMG Academy and the new Advanced Engineering Programme which sees WMG’s offering education in the range from 14 year olds to doctorate.

To gain a full insight into WMG, Nigel and Dolores were given a tour of WMG’s impressive R&D facilities to see first-hand the collaborative research the Group is involved in.