A new multi-million pound centre of design excellence to support UK innovation in the transport industry and boost efforts to bridge a shortfall in essential creative skills will be opening at Coventry University in 2017.
The announcement of the National Transport Design Centre (NTDC) comes as a new report from the Automotive Council UK identifies a need for improved education provision for the vehicle design sector to meet urgent demand for creative roles such as modellers.
The NTDC – whose construction has already started on Coventry University’s Technology Park – is being funded through the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and the government’s multimillion pound Local Growth Deal, with an initial £7 million contribution.
State-of-the-art features of the NTDC, which forms a key facility for the University’s existing Centre for Mobility and Transport, include:
- a six metre interactive power wall which allows users to explore detailed design and engineering concepts in virtual reality
- advanced clay milling facilities for creating physical models of vehicles
- a projection mapping system which can cast digital images onto 3D objects below, helping designers to assess how multiple options would appear on full-scale models
The centre is set to address many of the Automotive Council report’s recommendations, with key areas of focus including undergraduate and postgraduate education in transport design, research projects in collaboration with industry, and support for the UK’s high-value manufacturing sector and its supply chain to improve design capability.
David Wright, director of strategic initiatives at Coventry University, said: “Our aim with the National Transport Design Centre is to meet this demand for specialised skills, building on Coventry University’s existing expertise in transport design with a range of new courses and research programmes. Not only that, but we’ll be ensuring the centre is ‘open for business’ for companies in the transport sector – whether automotive, rail, aerospace or marine – to work with us to help them grow.”
Re-posted from E-Edition (TN)
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