IMRC

Grand Challenges

The Department of Engineering is one of a select group of UK academic institutions to win funding for ground-breaking projects that will tackle the challenges facing manufacturing in the 21st Century. A total of £21 million has been raised from government grants and industrial sponsorship for four 'Grand Challenge' areas.

The manufacturing Grand Challenges have been set up by the Government to encourage the UK's Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRCs) to address issues that have the potential for significant impact on national manufacturing priorities. The IMRCs are academic institutions recognized by the Government as being at the forefront of manufacturing understanding and research.

The Institute for Manufacturing has been involved in two of these flagship projects which are now completed:

• Innovation and productivity
• Regenerative medicine - a new industry

…and is currently involved in:

• Micro-manufacturing

Micro-manufacturing

A radical new approach to the manufacture of miniature 3D objects will be the focus of this Grand Challenge, enabling UK business to be at the forefront of developing the next generation of electronic products in a wide range of sectors. The project, dubbed '3-D Mintegration', will establish new techniques to enable the production of genuine 3D, multi-material products in the automotive, aerospace, telecommunications, medical and consumer sectors.

Current micro-engineering techniques only permit the manufacture of products using single materials that typically have to be built up in multi-layer configurations. This £9 million, 4-year programme sets out to create a shift in manufacturing by developing the technologies and strategic approaches required to produce complex 3D miniaturized devices and assemblies.

The Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), part of the Department of Engineering, are collaborating with Cranfield, Greenwich, Heriot Watt, Loughborough and Nottingham universities as well as the National Physical laboratory. Twenty-three companies are also supporting the project.

For further information please contact Dr Bill O'Neill

For more information on the Grand Challenge consortia: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) newsletter (page 3): http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/CMSWeb/Downloads/Publications/Connect/Connect31.pdf

For more information on the development of the Grand Challenges, see: 2004 workshop