04.02.14
Centre for Innovation in Rail launched
Money from the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) will support the creation of the Centre for Innovation in Rail (CIR), the University of Huddersfield has announced.
The centre will receive £4m from the RGF, matched by project partners. The overall investment is £20m.
CIR will be based within the Institute of Rail Research at the university and will build on the strategic partnership with the RSSB, with the support of NSARE and technical partners Unipart Rail and Omnicom Engineering.
The IRR’s assistant director and CIR project manager Dr Paul Allen (who was interviewed in the previous edition of RTM) said: “This will include all aspects of vehicle design and track construction to increase safety and reliability, reduce asset costs and drive performance improvement of the railway system.
“Priority will be given to assisting regional SMEs to develop competitive products and services that can be brokered into the railway supply chain, and result in new job creation and up‐skilling of the workforce.”
Professor Simon Iwnicki, director of the IRR, added: “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.”
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