Tue, 29 March, 2022
Brunel University’s vice-provost of research, Geoff Rodgers is presenting on the topic of ‘Leveraging Research with Public Funding’ at Research for Impact 2022.
Brunel University has been working alongside TWI for over a decade to collaborate on delivering original PhD student research for industry under the umbrella of the National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC), while simultaneously delivering industry-based PhDs in structural integrity topics.
Geoff spoke to us about Brunel University London, the importance of research and the topic of his presentation at R4i 2022 Brunel Industrial Case Studies.
Hi Geoff, can you start by explaining a bit more about the importance of research for Brunel University, your PhD students, and wider industry?
Research is an essential part of Brunel’s activities, we create social, economic, health, quality of life, policy and environmental public benefit from all our research, across all disciplines. In engineering, this often means helping industry to innovate with new products or processes that are more efficient and that help to drive productivity and growth. At the same time however, we are training students to be the next generation of researchers and industrials, which is also very important.
Why do you think collaboration, both with industry and academia, as well as other bodies, is so important for modern research and development?
We want our research to address a public need, so working in partnership with industry allows us to co-create the research programme, ensuring that it is robust and addresses a real world problem. Our industrial partners benefit from access to our expertise and equipment, working with us provides training opportunities for students and their staff, and we are able to leverage public funding to support the programme. It’s the only way to work these days.
Can you give us a little insight into what you will be speaking about during your presentation at R4i?
I will give a selection of case studies about how Brunel has worked with industries across a range of sectors and technologies, and the difference it has made to those businesses.
R4i is concerned with aligning R&D with the strategies of the European Commission and the UK, why do you think it is important to have this focus to guide the direction of R&D?
Well, I think securing funding is important to us all, and helps facilitate partnerships, but also, I think these programmes provide a good guide to where the important technologies of tomorrow will be found. I think with net zero in particular, industry needs to align with government strategy if we are to develop the technologies society will need.
You can register to attend Research for Impact 2022, here.