Green light for major railway research and training centre
THE University of Huddersfield’s £20m Centre for Innovation in Rail (CIR) is underway.
The government is providing a £4m Regional Growth Fund (RGF) grant will be matched by the project partners.The overall investment in the project is over £20m.
The CIR will be based within the internationally-renowned Institute of Railway Research (IRR) at the university and will build on the institute’s strategic partnership with RSSB, with the support of the National Skills Academy for Rail Engineering (NSARE) and technology partners, Unipart Rail and Omnicom Engineering.
The Institute was formed at the University of Huddersfield in 2012 and the RGF funding will take the size of the team to 40 research staff. Its director, professor Simon Iwnicki, said he expects the CIR to capitalise on the best of the institute’s research output and embed this within the UK railway industry.
“The research and training carried out by the centre will contribute to the strategic needs of the railway industry as outlined in the Rail Technical Strategy and will increase the level of innovation in the industry and reduce the barriers to knowledge transfer and reduce industry costs,” he said.
The new facility will build upon the world‐class product design and R&D capability of the project partners, to provide industry and academia with training, research and expert services to develop and improve critical engineering interfaces in the rail industry. The IRR’s assistant director and CIR project manager Dr Paul Allen said that the centre will have a dedicated team comprising academics, researchers, business development staff and administrators.
