WMG News - Latest news from WMG

Four pupils from North Leamington School have won the national final for F1 in Schools and will now represent the UK at the world finals, which are being held in Abu Dhabi in November. Academics from WMG have been working with the students to help them to develop 3D printed parts for their car, which won the UK competition at the NEC earlier this month.

The team from Leamington Spa, named Whittle Wonders, has been supported by WMG for the last three years of the competition. Dr Greg Gibbons, Head of Additive Layer Manufacturing Research at WMG helped the team to produce 3D printed parts for their cars, including the front nose cone and aerofoil components.

WMG, at the University of Warwick, has launched a new “Project Associate” scheme as part of its Innovation Programme for small and medium sized businesses.

The scheme will offer 25 SMEs in the region £1000 each towards the cost of taking on a new person to work on a dedicated project over the summer, 2014.

The Innovation Programme operates out of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation. Dr Mark Swift, Head of SME Programmes at WMG comments:

Many of the companies we are working with in the West Midlands are eager to progress with new product and service ideas, however haven’t necessarily got the time and skills to move forward. We have put aside some funds to support businesses to get access to the many talented individuals who work with WMG who can help them deliver specific product and service development projects.”

WMG has continued to progress its ambitious expansion plans announcing the appointment of a number of new major academic posts in several key areas.

WMG continues to attract world class Professors with recent appointments in the areas of steels processing, cyber security, advanced propulsion and structural composites. This builds on the nine appointments made last year in the areas of E-Health Innovation, Nanocomposites, Supply Chain and Operations, Automation Systems, Vehicle Electrification and Energy Storage, Low Carbon Materials, Energy for Low Carbon Vehicles and Digital Manufacturing.

Do we take engineering for granted? What would our life be like without engineers?

To get people thinking about the impact that engineering has on our everyday life, the WMG Academy for Young Engineers is asking everyone to tweet and facebook them explaining how life would be different #withoutengineers.

Simply visit their facebook page or find them on twitter @wmgacademy and send in your ideas and photos telling them what things in life would be very different #withoutengineers!

WMG was pleased to host a visit by the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Sir Jeremy was keen to hear about the breadth of work that the Group undertakes as well as to understand how WMG develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships.

Sir Jeremy, along with members of the Cabinet Office Will Cavendish, Executive Director Implementation Group and Kathy Hall, Deputy Director, Growth Implementation Group, had a tour of WMG’s impressive R&D facilities to then see first-hand the collaborative research the Group is involved in.

WMG congratulates Claire Donaghue who won the Silver Engineering Award at the 2014 SET for Britain Poster Competition which took place at the Houses of Parliament today.

WMG sponsored the Silver Engineering Award which was presented to Claire by Dr David Clark, Principal Fellow at WMG.

Claire Donaghue is a PhD student from the Centre of Excellence for Medical Engineering Solutions in Osteoarthritis at Imperial College. Claire won the Silver Award for her poster on ‘Teaching Machines to Diagnose Osteoarthritis from MRI Scans’.

Award-winning brewer Hobsons Brewery, based in Shropshire, has collaborated with WMG at the University of Warwick to develop an innovative tracking system set to track their Beer Barrels by tapping on a smartphone.

Working with WMG’s dedicated small business team based at the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation (IIPSI), University of Warwick, Hobsons were able to solve their specific problem of finding a simple way to track casks and their contents.

The SME team at WMG helped the company bring together the right RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) tags for the barrels, a smartphone app, and a cloud database system to do the asset tracking. This solution allows for communication between different handheld devices and the ability for Hobsons staff to simply monitor barrels while on the road.

Jaguar Land Rover and WMG, at the University of Warwick, have appointed Professor David Greenwood as the Jaguar Land Rover Professorial Chair in Advanced Propulsion Systems for the National Automotive Innovation Centre.

Jaguar Land Rover announced last year that it would invest £1.4m in the new position to lead a world-class team of international researchers to advance new and innovative propulsion systems. Professor Greenwood will take up the position, at WMG, on April 7th.

The new Chair is a key element of a long-term strategic plan at the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) that will create a new research base that will enhance the UK’s capacity and capability in key areas of automotive research. These systems will be essential to enable the UK automotive industry to embrace and robustly deploy new vehicle technologies and deliver a low carbon future, which will have a major impact on the supply chain and the wider economy.

WMG welcomed a delegation from Geely Group this week to sign a memorandum of understanding to develop a wide-ranging collaboration between the two organisations.

Geely Group is one of China’s largest automotive companies and is the owner of Volvo Cars and the London Taxi Company (LTI Ltd). The collaboration will also involve collaboration with Sanya University in China with whom Geely also work closely.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya and Mr Yuan Xiaolin (Assistant to the Board Chairman of Geely and Board member of Volvo) signed the memorandum of understanding at WMG’s International Manufacturing Centre on Tuesday 25 February.

Also visiting WMG for the ceremony were Ms He We-Hong (Training Director at Geely), Mr Lin Xiaohu (General Manager Shanghai London Taxi Company), Professor Lu Dan (President of Sanya University) and Ms Che Yi (Director of the International Office at Sanya University).

WMG was pleased to welcome, and host, The Worshipful Company of Engineers on 26th February 2014.

Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya and senior staff, the Master, Graham Skinner, and members were interested to find out more about the breadth of research activities undertaken, as well as how WMG develops partnerships with industry and the significant economic and social benefits of such partnerships.