Sheffield AMRC and Boeing science-industry partnership wins Bhattacharyya Award
30 Sep 2024
The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and Boeing have won the prized 2024 Bhattacharyya Award, for the most impactful collaboration between academic research and industry.
In a partnership dating back more than 23 years the duo is estimated to have created more than 2,500 jobs, £350 millions of inward investment, and to have trained more than 2,000 apprentices.
AMRC chief executive officer for the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) Steve Foxley remarked after receiving the £25,000 prize at host the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Prince Philip House in London:
“Winning the 2024 Bhattacharyya Award from a list of such high-calibre companies and universities, and seeing the work they have produced, is a very humbling moment - and brings with it a huge sense of pride and accomplishment.”
The award was founded in 2019 as a tribute to Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, the Regius professor of Manufacturing at the University of Warwick and founder of the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG).
Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, chair of the judging panel, admitted the task of choosing a winner was challenging because each candidate was different in topic and scale. The other finalists were: the University of Bristol and EDF Energy; Cardiff and Swansea Universities, the Compound Semiconductor Centre, IQE and SPTS; Cranfield University and Airbus; and Heriot-Watt University and Renishaw Strategic Alliance.
“We were looking for evidence of sustained industrial collaboration with demonstrated mutual benefit to both academia and industry, alongside a clear contribution to the UK economy,” Sweeting said.
“The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and The Boeing Company showed clear evidence of a sustained industrial collaboration with demonstrated mutual benefit to both academia and industry, alongside a clear contribution to the UK economy.”
He remarked that the winning pair had provided a blueprint for partnership critical to driving growth in the economy, innovation in business and capitalising on research and development at universities, adding that the future of the success of UK plc would depend upon such synergy.
Vice-president for research and innovation at the University of Sheffield, professor Sue Hartley said: “Here at the University of Sheffield we are committed to an ambitious agenda of research and innovation that tackles real world challenges and brings economic benefits for our city, our region and the whole of the UK.
“The longstanding partnership between our AMRC and Boeing is an excellent example of this and it has been exciting to see the collaboration grow and the huge positive impacts it is having on the University, Boeing and the South Yorkshire region.”
The AMRC forms part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, whose CEO Katherine Bennett commented: "Their dynamic long-term partnership is a blueprint for deep collaborative alliances, underpinned by HVM Catapult investment and support from Innovate UK.”
In addition to being research and manufacturing partners, the two winners have also been neighbours since 2018, when Boeing’s first European manufacturing facility opened near the AMRC site at Rotherham’s Advanced Manufacturing Park.
In 2023, Boeing and the AMRC announced the COMPASS – Composites at Speed and Scale –project to de-risk and develop high-rate sustainable structures with the potential to reduce large component process times from approximately 40 hours to nearly four hours.
