NSIRC is the world’s first educational establishment offering industry-driven postgraduate degree programmes in structural integrity. It has been established to address the shortage of structural integrity engineers worldwide and ensure UK competitiveness in this key area. Within its first ten years of operation, the Centre will engage over 500 postgraduate students in PhD, MPhil and MSc courses, enabling the ground-breaking research needed by industry and equipping these newly qualified students with valuable commercial engineering experience.
The Centre, which opened its doors to its first PhD student on 1st May this year, is being built next door to TWI’s headquarters at Granta Park, Cambridge. Forty-one jobs will be created as part of the new Centre.
TWI has also received backing and support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) through its Regional Growth Fund (RGF) and also from The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
TWI is partnering with Brunel University, as well as Cambridge and Manchester Universities, who provide NSIRC with fundamental science, academic supervision and governance for the degree awards while industry partners will provide long term technical challenges that the Centre will tackle through its research programmes.
Gillian Leech, TWI Director of Finance said: “With the Centre’s planned completion date of early 2015, we have reached an important phase in our building schedule. Support from Barclays ensures continuity of progress in delivering the new facilities, which will create valuable employment for the region and present opportunities for postgraduate students to work in an engineering environment and to carry out research that answers industry needs.”
Franc Carr, Relationship Director at Barclays, said: “The establishment of the new engineering research centre aims to ensure the UK’s continued international competitiveness and provide qualified engineers for the future.”
