Brunel metals engineering centre gets £9 million backing

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the so-called Liquid Metals Engineering Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (LiME IMRC) aims to make a significant contribution to the UK metals industry, said to be worth £17 billion a year to the UK economy. A total of 15 industrial partners from across the supply chain, as well as industry trade bodies and knowledge transfer networks, are involved. The Universities of Oxford and Birmingham are also partners in the LiME IMRC initiative, which will operate as a single entity across the three universities. Investment from EPSRC will total £4.5 million over a five-year period, starting next month (February), with industrial partners contributing a further £4.6 million. Professor Zhongyun Fan (pictured), Professor of Metallurgy at Brunel, will lead the LiME IMRC. He said: "The UK metal industry employs 400,000 people, with over 29,000 metals-based enterprises around the country. Much of the UK economy is built on metals, and many of our key manufacturing industries depend on a supply of high performance metallic materials that enable them to compete internationally." The LiME IMRC was announced on 7 Jan by Secretary of State, Business, Innovation and Skills, Lord Peter Mandelson, and is part of a £70 million investment being made in a wave of EPSRC centres across the UK. Others so far announced are regenerative medicine (Loughborough) and photonics (Southampton).