£8M invested in Scottish engineering

The Universities of Dundee and Aberdeen and the Robert Gordon University have collaborated to form the Northern Research Partnership (NRP). The initiative has received more than £8 million funding from the Scottish Funding Council to respond to the challenge of increased international competition in engineering research.

The purpose of the partnership is to establish groups of research excellence in clearly defined and strategically important areas of engineering and related disciplines. The NRP will collaborate, through the proposed over-arching Scottish Research Partnership, to raise the international competitiveness of Scottish engineering research and postgraduate training.

The partner universities have set up a common Graduate School to support and enhance research student activities. This mirrors the establishment of similar regional partnerships in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The NRP is an opportunity to pool the strength in areas common to partner universities and to exploit complementary areas of research. It is the first time that the institutions have agreed to go beyond collaboration on an ad-hoc basis towards bringing together research priorities in the area of engineering research. This will enhance research performance of the participating groups in all partner universities by increasing significantly the competitiveness of research groups in the region.