19 March 2008

Research students deliver Engineering presentations

Engineering students from three of Scotland's leading universities will this afternoon (Wednesday, March 19) deliver a short presentation on their research at a Northern Research Partnership event being held at the Robert Gordon University.

Last year Aberdeen, Dundee and the Robert Gordon Universities collaborated to establish the Northern Research Partnership (NRP), an initiative which 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 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.

On behalf of the NRP, the nine students will this afternoon deliver their presentations to an audience consisting of NRP funded research students, their supervisors and members of the NRP Strategic Management Board. The presentations will focus on various areas of specialism including biomedical technology; energy; clean technology; computational systems; and civil engineering.

Each student will deliver their 10 minute presentation which is accessible to a general scientific/engineering audience. At its meeting in November 2007 the NRP Strategic Management Board agreed that a prize of a conference travel bursary will be awarded to the best presentation.

Dr Peter Edwards, Director, NRP Graduate School at the University of Aberdeen, is looking forward to meeting the students and hearing about their work. He said: "This afternoon's event is an excellent opportunity for the research students from the Graduate Schools involved in the Northern Research Partnership to show guests the innovative ideas they are developing. The NRP is providing an opportunity to pool the research strengths in areas common to the three partner universities involved and to exploit areas of complementarity."

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.

Professor Peter Robertson, Vice-Principal (Research and Commercialisation) at The Robert Gordon University, said: "This research pooling activity between the three institutions involved in the Northern Research Partnership represents a valuable opportunity for us to develop a serious critical mass of research around engineering in Scotland. In particular, it enables us to address some of the most significant challenges affecting society and the economy for the next 50 years."

Each of the collaborative research groups are working closely to place Scotland at the forefront of international engineering research and the partnership represents a cluster of research groups in the engineering area.

Today's event is taking place at the Faculty of Health & Social Care, Garthdee campus, at the Robert Gordon University between 1 and 4.45pm.

"It is fantastic to see the breadth of ideas being presented by the students from each of the institutions involved in the Northern Research Partnership. The quality of the work we are seeing from the students already is a sign of the potential which this collaboration holds," said Professor Anne Anderson, Head of the College of Art, Science & Engineering at the University of Dundee.

Notes to Editors:
For further details on the Northern Research Partnership, visit:
www.northscotland-research.ac.uk.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk