Welcome to EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Innovative Metal Processing (IMPaCT)
In addition to economic value, the metals industry provides a significant contribution to a number of the future challenges facing society, e.g. the modernisation and energy efficiency of transport systems, the promotion of security and consumer safety for energy generation.
It has been pointed out by many companies in the UK, however, that the lack of well-trained metals engineers remains a major concern for high-value manufacturing industry, e.g. aero-space, power generation, gas and oil, offshore engineering sectors.
IMPaCT is born out of our recognition of a national and strategic need for training future leaders who are able to fully exploit and deploy innovative metal processing techniques in industry.
IMPaCT brings together world-class metals research teams from the universities of Leicester, Birmingham and Nottingham along with 14 industrial and international partners. The Centre has secured significant financial support from EPSRC, the three universities and our industrial partners including Alstom Power, Doncasters Group, Rolls-Royce, STFC, Tata Steel and TWI.
IMPaCT is part of a £350 million initiative to train over 3,500 post graduate students in engineering and physical sciences, announced by the UK Universities and Science Minister in November 2013. The 4 years of training in the Centre will have a broad coverage of metal processing topics, such as single crystal casting,
In the last 3 years, you will conduct PhD research in a particular topic. IMPaCT will provide integrated experimental, analytical, modelling and transferable skills training which is required for innovation in industry.
Beyond this, there is an array of student-led events organised by IMPaCT, e.g. mini-symposia, workshops and summer schools, where you can form interdisciplinary networks and collaborations, and I hope that you will take advantage of these – and let me know what other activities you would like.
I wish you a warm welcome and all success for your research; studying metal processing at IMPaCT will be invigorating, challenging and rewarding.
I hope you will nurture friendships, forge new research directions, and develop a fulfilling career to lead the UK, in particular the aerospace and energy sectors, to new levels of innovation and added value.