Fri, 06 November, 2020
The University of Hertfordshire and TWI through its wholly owned subsidiary in Athens, TWI Hellas, are set to build on their long-standing relationship with the inception of a new Innovation Centre that focuses on 5G, computer science and engineering. The initiative will provide a further platform through which to combine their complementary skills and experience in delivering industry-led research and development (R&D).
The mission of the new venture is to become an internationally leading centre of excellence in the fields of communication networks, computer modelling and artificial intelligence (AI), data science and robotics, advanced materials and energy systems. The core of this will be undertaking joint research programmes to develop new disruptive and enabling technologies in the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 1-6, for the exploitation of 5G with big data and robotics, with the aim of also deepening the application of advanced materials technology and sustainable energy systems both across industry and the wider industry.
This will include working collaboratively with SMEs in the UK and Europe to access public funding from bodies such as Innovate UK and Horizon Europe to support R&D. A Europe-centric approach is central to the new venture which aims to engage with the wider innovation community to develop a research portfolio comprising new collaborative projects that will deepen digital manufacturing technologies, and resulting in the delivery of novel products, systems and services.
Professor John Senior, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at the School of Physics, Engineering & Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, stated “Having now formally established the new innovation partnership with TWI Hellas, this builds on our leading expertise in communication networks incorporating 5G, together with the outstanding research undertaken in the broader application domains of computer science and engineering. It will enable this new partnership, which has direct access to the extensive TWI Industrial Membership base together with mainland Europe, to flourish through the successful delivery of user driven research, in order to embrace the increasing opportunities associated with Industry 4.0.”
Panos Chatzakos, Regional Manager at TWI Hellas, further expressed that “By combining their expertise, our two organisations will unify their capabilities in automation and artificial intelligence to progress state-of-the-art in 5G and allied technologies, leading to future training of graduate students and highly skilled personnel through collaborative, multidisciplinary projects.”
Cem Selcuk, Head of Business Development for the TWI Innovation Network, said “It is with delight that we welcome this new Innovation Centre, following the mutual dialogues that have taken place between myself and Professor John Senior to turn the vision of our two organisations into reality, and despite changes to the landscape such as Brexit and the global pandemic, to build on our combined academic and industrial strengths to the benefit of the wider UK and European innovation community.”