̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Richard Prager

Formula 1 engineering scholarship announced

ps748 — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 16:06:46 +0000

Following the launch of Formula 1’s #WeRaceAsOne initiative last year it set out plans to increase diversity and inclusion across Formula 1, in addition to wider plans set out in its diversity and inclusion strategy in 2019. Formula 1 announced last year that as a sport it would focus specifically on creating employment and education opportunities for underrepresented groups with a personal contribution of $1 million (around £725,000) from its non-executive chairman, Chase Carey, to finance primarily, but not exclusively, engineering-focused scholarships for underrepresented students.

On 14 July Formula 1 announced the Formula 1 Engineering Scholarships, for ten students from underrepresented groups including ethnic minorities, women, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Each scholarship will provide the full cost of a student’s tuition, together with a living stipend. ̽��ֱ��scholars will be part of the September/October 2021 intake of undergraduate courses in the UK and Masters (postgraduate) in Italy. All ten Formula 1 teams have committed to provide work experience opportunities to a scholar during their time at university. ̽��ֱ��participating universities represent different regions within the UK and Italy, and each will run an independent selection process to determine the scholarship recipients. Alongside Cambridge, Formula 1 is partnering with Coventry, Manchester Metropolitan, MUNER – Motorvehicle ̽��ֱ�� of Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Oxford, and Strathclyde.

As well as the scholarship programme, Formula 1 is launching an apprentice programme and internship programme for underrepresented groups.

Stefano Domenicali, President and CEO of Formula 1 said:

"Formula 1 is a global sport with fans across the world. We want to be as diverse as our fan base and that is why we are taking action to ensure talented people from underrepresented groups have the best opportunities to get into, and build, a fantastic career in this amazing sport. I am delighted to announce that scholars, apprentices and interns will get the chance to fulfil their dreams in Formula 1 and I know they have amazing futures ahead of them. I want to pay particular thanks to Chase, whose generous donation is funding the ten scholarships."

"Our #WeRaceAsOne platform is our commitment to make real change and shows our recognition that we know we must make a positive contribution to the world we live in. All of the teams are committed to this and the work of the Hamilton Commission shows the dedication to addressing these issues across Formula 1. Our focus is on diversity and inclusion, sustainability and community, and we will continue to drive forward with our plans to be more diverse, more sustainable and leave a lasting positive impact on the countries and communities we visit. We know we must continue to move forward on these issues and the whole sport is united in doing this in the months and years ahead."

Professor Richard Prager, the Head of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Engineering Dept, said:

"We are incredibly grateful to Formula 1 for providing a student with this generous scholarship. Engineering is about problem solving, creativity and team-work, which all benefit greatly from a diverse and inclusive environment. This scholarship will highlight the importance of this priority for the Department of Engineering and the wider ̽��ֱ��, and hopefully encourage many other students from currently underrepresented backgrounds to consider studying engineering at Cambridge."

Formula 1 is to fund an undergraduate student from an underrepresented background to study for an engineering degree at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��scholarship will be administered by the Cambridge Trust and will cover tuition fees and maintenance costs for the four year duration of the course.

Engineering is about problem solving, creativity and team-work, which all benefit greatly from a diverse and inclusive environment.

Professor Richard Prager

Full Blue Racing

Engineering students working on a Full Bull racing car

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Cambridge engineers recognised with awards for pandemic service

sc604 — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 09:30:22 +0000

̽��ֱ��engineers, from the Institute of Manufacturing and the Whittle Laboratory, are among the 19 winners announced today for exceptional engineering achievements in tackling COVID-19 in the UK. In addition, two Cambridge alumni, Dr Ravi Solanki and Raymond Siems, were recognised for their work with the HEROES charity. In less than two days, their team turned an idea into a platform with genuine impact: a secure website through which more than 543,000 items of much-needed support have been provided to NHS workers, from sustainable PPE to counselling services and child care.

̽��ֱ��awards have been made to teams, organisations, individuals, collaborations and projects across all technical specialities, disciplines and career stages within the UK engineering community who have contributed to addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Open Ventilator System Initiative

̽��ֱ��team behind the Open Ventilator System Initiative was recognised for their development of a high-performance ventilator for manufacture in low and middle-income countries that became the first intensive care quality ventilator to be manufactured in Africa.

In March 2020, as Covid-19 infection rates were rising dramatically in Europe, the number of infections in many low- and medium-income countries remained low. However, it was predicted that towards the summer these rates would start to increase. This was especially worrying due to the low number of ventilators available in the developing world.

In response to these fears, a team at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a number of companies within the Cambridge cluster designed a high-performance intensive care ventilator for manufacture in low and middle-income countries. ̽��ֱ��aim was to develop a ventilator with a price point that was a factor of 10 lower than what was currently available, which could be manufactured from readily available components and which could be manufactured in-country. ̽��ֱ��result was the first clinical grade ventilator to be manufactured in Africa.

An engineering team led by Dr Tashiv Ramsander at Cambridge Aerothermal Ltd was quickly assembled at the Whittle Laboratory, and comprised people from several departments at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a range of local companies including Cambridge Aerothermal, Beko R&D, Cambridge Instrumentation and Interneuron.

Together, this multidisciplinary team was able to solve problems such as the design of a pressure relief valve, inspired by the mixing nozzles on the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 aircraft engine. ̽��ֱ��design removed flow instabilities, resulting in a more stable operation than any commercially available valve.

̽��ֱ��clinically driven design was developed with the help of two senior intensive care clinicians with experience of treating COVID-19. They argued that a design for developing countries needed to be more versatile than the UK government specification and the final design can operate in non-invasive, mandatory or patient-triggered ventilation modes.

For more than eight years the Whittle Laboratory has been developing a rapid technology development process for the aerospace and power generation sectors. During the pandemic this process was switched to develop a clinical grade ventilator within a week and allowing a rapid response to design changes driven by the pandemic, cost reduction and clinical demand.

̽��ֱ��final Open Ventilator design can be manufactured mostly from standard parts, anywhere in the world that it is needed.

̽��ֱ��reach and impact of COVID-19 in developing countries is not yet known, but this new design - the first intensive care quality ventilator to be manufactured in Africa - could prove to be a gamechanger when it comes to a host of conditions including pneumonia, as well as COVID-19. Childhood pneumonia killed 162,000 children in Nigeria alone in 2018.

There are very few ventilators in Africa, due to their high cost, inability to operate in harsh environments and a lack of local maintenance expertise. ̽��ֱ��team realised these problems could be solved by manufacturing the equipment in Africa. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge engineering team assembled a wider manufacturing team that includes Defy and Denel Land Systems in South Africa, Beko R&D and Prodrive in the UK and Arçelik in Turkey. This team delivered the first 20 preproduction ventilators in South Africa in June.

“ ̽��ֱ��result is a design that will save countless lives in the developing world where ventilators are scarce and many that exist cannot achieve the quality of performance that the Open Ventilator offers,” said Professor Richard Prager, head of the Department of Engineering. “It is a scalable solution. ̽��ֱ��high-performance open-source design will enable companies across the world to make systems wherever they are needed, and at a price that is compatible with the local healthcare systems.”

Institute for Manufacturing

̽��ֱ��IfM team helped local hospitals to make the best use of their resources, streamlining logistics for sourcing and storing vital PPE, informing decision-making on emergency demand, and developing a ventilator sharing system to be used in emergencies.

As hospitals scrambled to make the necessary operational changes needed to accommodate COVID-19 patients, a team of staff and students from the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge was there to help. Working with clinicians and senior healthcare managers to assess the immediate and emerging operational challenges facing local hospitals, they identified where these could be addressed through the application of engineering capabilities and coordinated the roll-out of solutions.

̽��ֱ��IfM team addressed three groups of tasks between March and May in the areas of hospital logistics, personal protective equipment (PPE) delivery and intensive care unit (ICU) equipment development.

In the hospital logistics area, the team applied industrial engineering approaches to COVID-related challenges including modelling in-hospital patient flows, redesigning COVID-19 testing procedures and managing oxygen supplies to the wards.

Understanding oxygen flow through the local hospital involved examining pipes and their layout, then analysing usage by ventilator type and patient need, as well as modelling supply and demand. ̽��ֱ��in-depth work of the IfM team enabled the hospital’s clinical and estates teams to identify and address various bottlenecks and improve operational efficiency.

̽��ֱ��team also looked at the design, setup and management of a temporary logistics hub for coordinating the delivery of millions of items of donated PPE and assessed the production capabilities of local manufacturers to increase flexibility of PPE supplies for local hospitals.

In conjunction with anaesthetists at Royal Papworth Hospital, they also devised an active ventilator sharing system in case there were not enough ventilators available during the COVID-19 outbreak. This involved the accelerated design, prototyping and in-hospital testing of an active ventilator sharing system in just four weeks.

Duncan McFarlane, Professor of Industrial Information Engineering at the IfM, led the team as they engaged with senior clinical and management teams within local hospitals to understand their needs and implement effective and collaborative ways of working. This involved joining the hospital's regular operations planning meetings and running daily project reviews with key hospital personnel during the peak COVID-19 surge, as well as working directly with clinicians in areas such as COVID-19 test processes, ward oxygen supply, and equipment design.

̽��ֱ��IfM team helped local hospitals make the best use of their resources and streamlined logistics for sourcing and storing vital PPE and other issues, enabling healthcare providers who were already feeling the strain to address pressing operational challenges.

In addition, the IfM provided analytical approaches for informing decision making at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospital (CUH) on emergency demand. ̽��ֱ��Trust is also using the team’s findings to forecast changes to demand for beds, equipment and staff when social distancing measures are relaxed or modified further. ̽��ֱ��hospital said the engineers brought diversity of perspective and a joint CUH–IfM panel has been initiated so that the hospitals and the IfM can continue working together for mutual benefit after the pandemic.

“ ̽��ֱ��team gave key support efficiently and skilfully when it was most needed, with no fuss and maximum impact: engineering at its best,” said Professor Prager. “ ̽��ֱ��team found a way to work with the clinicians without taking up too much clinical time. They found the problems that needed solving and got on with solving them. They stepped up when they were needed and made a real difference. For this, we should be proud of them.”

Professor Tim Minshall, Dr John C Taylor Professor of Innovation and Head of the Institute for Manufacturing, said: “It makes me so proud to see the way in which our students and staff – academic, research and administrative – were able to rapidly understand and help address the operational challenges facing the amazing teams at Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth during this crisis.

“We are also delighted that there is such enthusiasm from both CUH and the IfM to build upon this experience and to develop ongoing collaboration in applying industrial engineering capabilities to healthcare system needs.”

How you can support Cambridge's COVID-19 research effort

Donate to support COVID-19 research at Cambridge

Two teams of Cambridge engineers have been recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic with the President’s Special Award for Pandemic Service.

Jude Palmer/Royal Academy of Engineering

̽��ֱ��OVSI team

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Cambridge and Nanjing break ground on 'smart cities' Centre

plc32 — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 04:03:44 +0000

Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope joined Zhang Jinghua, Party Secretary of Nanjing City Party Committee and Nanjing Deputy Mayor Jiang Yuejian to turn the first soil at the site where the Centre's dedicated building will rise in Nanjing's Jiangbei New Area.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation will establish a home for joint research and innovation in collaboration with the Chinese government, industry and China's global research universities that is dedicated to the future of creating 'smart' cities.

"Here in Nanjing, an ancient city and former imperial capital, we are embarking on a unique enterprise," Vice-Chancellor Toope said at the groundbreaking ceremony. " ̽��ֱ��innovations emerging from this Centre will enable the development of 'smart' cities in which sensors can enable sustainable lifestyles, improve healthcare, limit pollution and make efficient use of energy."

Cambridge and its Chinese partners will share revenue derived from the commercialisation of Intellectual Property (IP) developed at the Centre. It is the ̽��ֱ��’s first overseas enterprise at this scale.

Funded by the Nanjing Municipality for its first five years, the project will have its own dedicated building as a pilot urban development based on high levels of technological innovation.

At the heart of the new Centre’s activities will be research into technologies that support a modern 21st century city with integrated IT, health care and building management. Innovations emerging from the Centre will enable the development of 'smart' cities in which sensors – applied at the individual level and all the way through to the level of large infrastructure – will enable sustainable lifestyles.

As well as supporting health and wellbeing in new cities, the new Centre will help deliver efficient energy use through its academic and entrepreneurial activities.

̽��ֱ��agreement between Cambridge and Nanjing will fund positions in Nanjing, both academic and management, and will allow Cambridge-based academics to engage with specific, long-term projects in Nanjing. It will also support the establishment of a professorship, based in Cambridge, with responsibility as the Centre’s Academic Director.

̽��ֱ��project has been driven by Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, although it is hoped that there will be opportunities to widen participation to other departments and Schools. IP generated by research funded through the Centre will be licensed for commercialisation by Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s innovation branch, Cambridge Enterprise.

̽��ֱ��Centre will seek to demonstrate the power of collaboration with China’s universities, industry, government and other partners to conduct the kind of academic research of excellence today that will make life better for the city dwellers of tomorrow.

One of the two initial projects already approved is to create a high resolution scanner that can provide a low-cost easily accessible method for examining difficult areas of the body, such as bent spines, without using large and expensive CT scans.

That project will be led by Cambridge Engineering Department Professor Richard Prager, in collaboration with China's Southeast ̽��ֱ�� and established local ultrasonic manufacturer Vinno.

A second identified project led by Principal Investigator Professor Toni Vidal-Puig from Cambridge’s Clinical Biochemistry Department, will study the associated complications of increased obesity in China.

Both themes are closely linked to the focus area of local partner, NIHA (Nanjing International Healthcare Area).

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor was joined at the groundbreaking ceremony by representatives from partners Nanjing ̽��ֱ��, Southeast ̽��ֱ��, Peking ̽��ֱ��. Tsinghua ̽��ֱ��, Fudan ̽��ֱ�� and Zheijiang ̽��ֱ�� as well as the Academic Director of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre, Professor Daping Chu of Cambridge's Electrical Engineering Department, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Relations Eilis Ferran.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Nanjing Municipal Government have broken ground on the Cambridge ̽��ֱ��-Nanjing Centre of Technology and Innovation.

Here in Nanjing, an ancient city and former imperial capital, we are embarking on a unique enterprise.

Vice-Chancellor Stephen J Toope

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International collaboration between Cambridge and Michigan built on ‘Powerful’ foundations

sc604 — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 03:31:42 +0000

̽��ֱ��Michigan-Cambridge Research Initiative (MCRI) is supporting collaborative research projects at both universities, including engineering solutions to prevent head injuries in sport, improved battery reliability, and new approaches to metals recycling. This is the second year of the programme, which brings together engineers and scientists at all stages of their careers, enabling the exchange of ideas at all levels.

̽��ֱ��MCRI is built on the foundations of the Power Exchange Scholarship Programme, which supported more than 50 students from Cambridge and Michigan over three decades starting in the late 1960s, fostering a culture of collaboration between the two universities.

̽��ֱ��Programme was supported by Eugene Power, an entrepreneur, philanthropist, Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College and alumnus of both universities. Former Power Scholars include Lord Howard Flight, former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, and Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, former United Nations Deputy Secretary-General.

Now, through the MCRI, Cambridge and Michigan are incorporating the type of collaboration and exchange exemplified by the Power Scholars Programme into their current relationship. ̽��ֱ��MCRI provides a formal mechanism and funding to encourage collaborations between the two universities, as well as support to develop partnerships and share expertise.

Richard Prager, Head of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Engineering Department, has been involved in the MCRI initiative since 2017. He said “collaborative links like this contribute to our strengths in both research and education. Genuine partnerships between universities can have a transformational effect on students’ lives and open up new, important fields of innovation and discovery.”

As the MCRI develops, both universities hope to create a Research Scholarship Programme to enable doctoral student exchange between the two institutions in key research areas, primarily in engineering and computer science, amongst other initiatives.

“We are pleased to reinvigorate this transatlantic relationship between two of the world's leading universities and the Power Scholars programme,” said Alec D. Gallimore, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of the College of Engineering at the ̽��ֱ�� of Michigan.

“Eugene Power was an innovator and entrepreneur and this Michigan-Cambridge Research Initiative carries on the legacy of the Power Scholars. It develops a practical platform for collaborative efforts between our students, faculty, and external partners for transformative solutions to problems with global impact.”

Earlier this year, nine of the Power Scholars returned to Cambridge for a dinner at Magdalene College, which hosted many of the students from the original Power Exchange Scholarship Programme. Attendees heard from senior academics from both universities about the partnership, and two Power Scholars, Lord Howard Flight and Dr Christine Martin, spoke to celebrate the renewal of the collaboration between Michigan and Cambridge.

“I was most fortunate to be selected as a Power Scholar attending the Michigan Business School in 1969-71, and my MBA has stood me in good stead throughout my career,” said Lord Flight. “I am most grateful to Eugene Power for financing the Power Scholarship and pleased to be able to make the first capital contribution to the new Cambridge - Michigan programme.”

A programme of research collaboration between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Michigan – which grew out of a scholarship programme founded in the 1960s between Magdalene College and Michigan – was celebrated at a recent event in Cambridge.

Genuine partnerships between universities can have a transformational effect on students’ lives and open up new, important fields of innovation and discovery

Richard Prager

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