Thu, 13 May, 2021
Since its launch in 2012, the National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) has gone on to prepare over 190 PhD students for a career in industry while simultaneously enabling the delivery of important research that has made a substantial contribution to the advancement of engineering and technology innovation world-wide. Industrial researchers are in high demand today to fuel the products and systems development pipeline, and the work of NSRIC students has encompassed, and continues to address, engineering and safety improvements in the fields of materials, joining technologies and structural integrity.
Under pinning this research and development activity is a long-standing and robust collaboration between industry and academia which, as well as providing results for real-world industrial needs and delivering global impact, also supports the UK economy. This step-change in innovation has been enabled by close partnership working between NSIRC’s industrial sponsors, TWI who established and manages NSIRC, and the leading universities who deliver and award the qualifications.
TWI Industrial Member companies can take advantage of the support offered by NSIRC through sponsorship of research or their staff. Benefits include primary access to cutting-edge scientific research, and the identification of solutions that match their own or their sectors’ needs for marketable new products and services. To date, NSIRC sponsorship has resulted in more than £150 million’s worth of investment into facilities, equipment and studentships, delivering 840 years’ worth of industrial PhD and MSc research.
Through student sponsorship, NSIRC also serves to meet the demand for highly-qualified engineers who have the necessary skills to achieve business growth. This includes Industrial Members being able to sponsor their own staff to undertake a PhD via NSIRC, thereby upskilling them with industrially relevant knowledge and experience at the same time.
Find out more about NSIRC in the NSIRC 2020 Impact Review, as well as email enquiries@nsirc.co.uk to discuss how NSIRC can help your organisation or company.
Dr Jan Przydatek, Director of Technology, Lloyd’s Register Foundation, which is one of the founding members of NSIRC, explained “We have been supporting NSIRC to create impact through education and research. By impact, we mean changes in the real world that enhance safety and advance public education. NSIRC’s postgraduate studies not only create individuals who are technically excellent, but they are also shaped to think with an industry mind-set, meaning that they are ready to fully integrate and add value into organisations from day one.”
“The research conducted at NSIRC is targeted at real world challenges with routes to application. After six years, we are starting to see NSIRC research influencing the standards of today and laying the foundations for the standards of tomorrow, and the development of technology and techniques to protect, inspect and maintain the structural integrity of assets and their component parts, and fundamental knowledge of new manufacturing techniques that will ensure their safe application.” “What is clear to me is that there is much more to come.” continued Dr Przydatek.