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North West Virtual Engineering Centre

What is the project?
Virtual Engineering methods are becoming essential to the survival of the aerospace sector and will increasingly be introduced across other high-value sectors.

There are barriers to most of the industry when it comes to Virtual Engineering, including:

  • lack of awareness of capabilities and potential business benefits from Virtual Engineering;
  • high entry cost of software/visualisation packages;
  • lack of skills. Companies are often ill equipped to take on new projects that require advanced design skills; and
  • lack of innovation (or time for innovation). Many organisations cannot take ideas forward with innovative content because of very limited product and process modelling capability.  

The project aims to create a world class Virtual Engineering Centre which will be staffed by highly experienced Virtual Engineering Engineers and will build on a strong public and private sector partnership.

The centre will act as:

  • a physical Virtual Engineering Centre which will contain ‘best-practice’ virtual engineering facilities that display integrated, interactive simulation and modelling software across the full range of virtual capabilities;
  • a Research Partnership using the grant to add value to existing research activities within the region by providing a commercially relevant focus;
  • a Knowledge Transfer Centre to increase awareness and give potential users an opportunity to ‘try before they buy’; and
    an Educational Centre.

What is its purpose?
To help establish a Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) based in the Northwest that will provide the Northwest and UK engineering value chain with Virtual Engineering capabilities for optimising cost-effective design, manufacturing and operational options.

How much funding has it received from ERDF?
£2.5 million

How much funding has it received from other funding partners?
£2.5 million from all other project partners

Who applied for this project?
University of Liverpool

Who can I contact to find out more?
Lynsey Keig

How can I contact them?
Lynsey.keig@liverpool.ac.uk