Fri, 21 January, 2022
Celebrating Ten Years of Pioneering, Postgraduate, Industrial Research and Development
The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its founding as a centre for industry focused postgraduate programmes.
Opening its doors in 2012, NSIRC was established by TWI Ltd, Lloyd’s Register Foundation and bp after a call from the UK Government for high-level research that would solve novel engineering challenges being faced by industry.
Jan Przydatek, Director of Technologies at Lloyd's Register Foundation, said: "The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) has been generating high-quality research and thought leadership for a decade now. Our investment in NSIRC has contributed to creating a legacy of new knowledge and excellent people that both go on to make the world a safer place. We’ll be joining our partners TWI in celebrating ten successful years of NSIRC throughout 2022.”
Alongside lead academic partner Brunel University London, NSIRC began to take on PhD and Master students, whose topics and dissertations reflected real world safety challenges being faced by global industries such as aerospace, renewables and other energy, transport, shipping and many more.
"...Our continued collaboration with some of the world’s most prestigious engineering companies and organisations demonstrates the vital bridge NSIRC provides..."
Dr Tat-Hean Gan, NSIRC Director
Today, the centre is affiliated with over 50 universities in the UK, Europe and Asia, and supported by industrial partners such as Saudi Aramco Technologies, ADNOC and BAE Systems, who provide sponsorship and industrial supervision to doctoral students.
Over 500 postgraduate students have cumulatively joined the centre since it began, with more than 40 different nations represented to date, and over 180 PhD students producing more than 500 years of PhD research so far.
As part of the tenth anniversary of NSIRC, the organisation has added to its brand logo, as a celebration of this milestone whilst promoting a vision for the future.
NSIRC 10th Anniversary. Image: NSIRC and TWI Ltd
The “10th Anniversary” addition not only reflects ten years of leading research, but its pixel style keeps an eye out to the future and the challenges of digitalisation in a virtual world.
NSIRC Director, Professor Tat-Hean Gan, said “This year will be a celebration that acknowledges all that our students, staff, sponsors, academics and founding partners have achieved with the success of NSIRC. Our continued collaboration with some of the world’s most prestigious engineering companies and organisations demonstrates the vital bridge NSIRC provides, linking academia and industry to produce award winning academic research that impacts industrial challenges in safety, structural integrity and applied sciences.”
In a 2020 Impact Review Dr Roberto Morana, Senior Materials & Welding Engineer and bp said, "The new partnership has also opened up opportunities for research and innovation to support bp-identified topics which are aligned with the company’s technology development program, including structure integrity, use of coatings and non-metallics and additive manufacturing (3D printing). Through NSIRC, bp has access to TWI’s expertise on applied research and to PhD students undertaking fundamental research to help underpin bp’s commercial operations.”
NSIRC Students. Photo: TWI Ltd