WMG was delighted to welcome Rick Snyder, Governor of the State of Michigan, on Friday (20 April 2018).

Our Academic Director, Professor Barbara Shollock introduced the Governor to WMG and gave an overview of our research capabilities and education programmes including those aimed at the next generation of young engineers and our executive education programmes.

The Governor was then given a tour of our world-class research and development facilities, including the International Manufacturing Centre. There, Professor Paul Jennings explained more about our Intelligent Vehicles research, including our state-of-the-art ‘3XD Simulator for Intelligent Vehicles.’ Professor Jennings also explained more about the UK Central CAV Testbed, a £25m project led by WMG which will see roads in Coventry and Birmingham become the UK testbed for developing the next generation connected and autonomous (CAV) vehicles. This was an area of particular interest as the University of Michigan is home to MCity, a demo ground built specifically for driverless car technology.

On Thursday 3rd May 2018, the Institute of Digital Healthcare (IDH) at WMG, University of Warwick, will be hosting the Digital Health & Care and Safety of Connected Health: Improvements & Applications Conference (DICOH’18).

The national conference is being sponsored by the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network and NHS Digital.

Professor Maureen Baker CBE, Chair of the Professional Record Standards Body, Dr Cian Hughes Senior Research Scientist, DeepMind and Professor Theo Arvanitis, Chair in e-Health Innovation and Head of Research at WMG will be joining other key experts in digital healthcare speaking at the conference.

There will also be a tutorial on clinical IT safety organised jointly by the Institute of Digital Health and the NHS Digital.

You can get more information or register for DICOH’18 here.

The famous Oxford Dodo died after being shot, according to breakthrough research by Oxford University Museum of Natural History and WMG at the University of Warwick.

Using revolutionary forensic scanning technology and world-class expertise, researchers have discovered surprising evidence that the Oxford Dodo was shot in the neck and back of the head with a shotgun.

The significant and unexpected findings, made by Professor Paul Smith, director of the Museum of Natural History, and Professor Mark Williams from WMG at the University of Warwick, only became apparent when mysterious particles were found in the specimen during scans carried out to help analyse its anatomy.

Subsequent analysis of the material and size of the particles revealed that they are lead shot pellets, typically used to hunt wildfowl during the 17th century.

The findings cast doubt on the popular theory that the Oxford Dodo is the remains of a bird kept alive in a townhouse in 17th-century London.

Dr John Low and Dr Jerome Charmet have been appointed as members of EPSRC’s prestigious Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research.

They will be tasked with establishing a community of early career academics to provide Theme Leaders at EPSRC with strategic advice to develop their themes in ‘Manufacturing the Future’. They will also act as a conduit for communication (with EPSRC), covering the broader community in manufacturing research both nationally and internationally.

Dr John Low who works in WMG’s Energy Innovation Centre, explains: “I will share my vision of manufacturing science in energy storage to help accelerate the UK’s advances in fundamental electrochemistry through to application-driven programmes.”

Dr Jerome Charmet, who is based within the Institute of Digital Healthcare team said: “I will endeavour to bridge the gap between the biomedical/clinical sciences and the manufacturing communities, in particular in the area of micro and nanotechnologies.”

Three senior figures from Jaguar Land Rover, AstraZeneca, and Associated British Ports will be giving their views on Brexit’s potential impact on Global Supply Chain at a special WMG debate and event at the University of Warwick on Tuesday 8 May 2018.

The confirmed speakers and panel members at the event include:

• Tim Sherwell from AstraZeneca, Regional Supply Director for Europe, and key member of the AstraZeneca Brexit team
• David Leighton from Associated British Ports, Group Head of Corporate Affairs, and a leading player in discussions with government in the UK and Brussels about the UK’s role as a Maritime Nation and the impact of Brexit

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman and founder of WMG, at the University of Warwick, has been honoured by the presentation of a China Talent Visa (R), in recognition of his high-level expertise in manufacturing and inward investment and sustained interaction with the People’s Republic of China.

The China Talent Visa (R) was presented to Professor Lord Bhattacharyya by the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, His Excellency, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming, in a special ceremony at the Chinese Embassy in London today (Tuesday 3^rd April).

Purity Brewing Ltd is a small brewer based on a farm between Studley and Great Alne not far from Stratford upon Avon. Sales continue to boom, which means constantly balancing the production of their beers with growing customer demand. The company turned to the SME team in WMG at the University of Warwick to help develop data systems to manage this complex operation while they get on with brewing the beer.

Andrew Thurston, Finance Director at Purity Brewing said:

“The WMG SME Group quickly identified our technical and business challenges. The new production tool will save us money and support Purity with its rapid growth.”

Purity Brewing benefitted from collaborative project support through the WMG SME Group’s Product Innovation Accelerator Project, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. This helps manufacturing SMEs within Coventry and Warwickshire and the Black Country are to create, test and develop new products, improve processes and access innovation support.

WMG, at the University of Warwick, is investing in data driven innovations with a new Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence. The Centre will enable industry and business to leverage large volumes of digital information to gain competitive insights through Artificial Intelligence methods.

This new centre brings together several applied areas of activity where WMG has an established track record of excellence. It will support the continued expansion of existing research groups in response to the ever-changing landscape of UK industrial needs. Two new appointees, Professor Giovanni Montana and Professor Mehrdad Dianati, will spearhead the Centre working closely with other academic colleagues in Intelligent Vehicles, WMG Cyber Security Centre and the Institute of Digital Healthcare.

In November, a team of WMG students led by Professor Jay Bal, attended The 2017 International Competition on InnovAtion (iCAN) at Peking University in Beijing.

The WMG team ran a stall to promote their innovative marketplace, and presented to a panel of international judges. They won the popular vote prize as well as a 3rd place prize from the judges.

This huge event held over three days welcomed 600 Chinese teams and 40 International teams from industry and academia.

iCAN aims to promote the innovative spirit and entrepreneurship of the younger generation worldwide helping to create a platform of collaboration to create applications in areas including internet of things, intelligent manufacturing and Industry 4.0.

More information on iCAN can be found here.

Robert Llewellyn hosted TV’s Scrapheap Challenge, starred as one of the crew of the spaceship Red Dwarf, and runs the popular ‘Fully Charged’ YouTube channel about renewable energy.

He spoke yesterday, Monday 19^th March 2018, at WMG, University of Warwick about his passion for renewable energy.

During his event, ‘In Conversation with Robert Llewellyn’, the famous advocate of clean technologies shared his experience of involvement with this field - particularly the move to electric, connected and autonomous vehicles, and how he sees the scale and pace of this technological shift first hand.

Robert also gave his thoughts on how the media covers one of the most transformational changes of our times.

While he was at WMG’s International Manufacturing Centre, he sat in a Tesla Model X - but unlike the other spaceman recently launched into space in a Telsa car, he a had a lot more to say about our clean energy futures.

As well as the Tesla Model X, Nissan Westway were at WMG with the new Leaf, demonstrating the new e-Pedal - and Jaguar Land Rover’s I-Pace completed the line-up of cutting edge electric vehicles on the campus.