Today is the day that UCLan’s Engineering Innovation Centre is officially launched. This is a £35m teaching and research facility, that is designed to engage directly with industry, and industry leaders, to provide real world engineering access to students. This is an opportunity unique to UCLan, and is sure to provide high quality experiences and training for engineering students.
Engineering and innovation
The Engineering Innovation Centre, also known as the EIC, is design to provide specialist engineering courses, that adapt and respond to the growing industry demand. Ultimately, the aim is to improve productivity across the North West. This will include working with 1,300 regional small and medium enterprises now and in the future.
A big part of the Lancashire Industrial Strategy, as well as national industrial strategy, the EIC will address a growing need for innovation and aims to produce the next generation of world-class engineers.
State of the art facilities
Inside the EIC, the research and teaching facilities are state of the art. They include:
- a 3D printing lab
- a flight simulator suite
- an advanced manufacturing workshop
- a motorsports and air vehicles lab
- a high-performance computing lab
- an intelligent systems facility
- and a fire, oil and gas facility.
A worthy investment
The EIC has become the largest single investment in Lancashire’s educational infrastructure, to date. This has established UCLan as one of the UK’s leading universities for engineering innovation. And this is only part of the University’s £200 million Masterplan. This will also include:
- a new student support centre
- improvements to the public realm and highways around the Adelphi roundabout
- new social spaces facilities
- a new multi-faith centre
Professor Graham Baldwin, vice-chancellor at UCLan, said:
“The provision of practice-based learning has always been a strength of this University and now, through the EIC and our links with industry, we will ensure our students gain exposure to even greater levels of applied, real-world learning.
“Our strategy is to ensure the University is at the forefront of future skills development enabling Lancashire and the North West region to lead the new ‘digital’ industrial revolution which is now upon us.”