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TWI Innovation Network

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The TWI Innovation Network (TWIIN) works to nurture and coordinate global partnerships - enabling engineering advances in specialist areas across a range of industry sectors in response to commercial needs - as well as helping to train and up-skill the next generation of industry experts and staff. A dedicated Technology Innovation Management (TIM) team supports SMEs, RTOs, TWI Industrial Member and TWIIN Subscriber companies to exploit the opportunities available for attracting public funding for collaborative technology-based projects.

TWIIN is an open innovation ecosytem encompassing:

  • Innovation Centres
  • The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC)
  • Technology Acceleration Partnerships (TAPs)
  • Private Technology Innovation Partnerships (PTIPs)
  • A Subscription scheme for companies and organisations
  • Technology Innovation Management for collaborative public funding bids
  • Training courses on optimising public funding activities
  • Innovation Consultancy Services

TWIIN partners benefit from targeted opportunities for business improvement, collaborative research and development (R&D), technological acceleration, and networking via an annual programme of online and in-person events. 

Innovation Centres

Innovation Centres are joint industry-academia research partnerships between TWI and leading universities, each focusing on a specialist area including advanced materials, robotics and autonomous systems, artificial intelligence (AI), net zero, the circular economy, carbon capture, advanced composites, renewables, joining 4.0 and healthcare. The Centres undertake joint research programmes, facilitated by successful bids for public funding, to develop the next generation of technological innovations. Collaborative projects span the application of new products, processes and systems at Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 4-7.

National Structural Integrity Research Centre

The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) is a state-of-the-art postgraduate engineering facility, established in 2012 by TWI, Lloyd’s Register Foundation and BP plc in close conjunction with lead academic partner Brunel University London. NSIRC students are based at TWI's Cambridge headquarters in an industrial setting where they can use the organisation's state-of-the-art engineering laboratories and work alongside TWI's technical staff. 

The TWI Innovation Network was created under the umbrella of the  Structural Integrity Research Foundation (SIRF). The TWI Innovation Network works to nurture and coordinate partnerships to enable engineering advances in specialist areas across a range of industry sectors in response to commercial needs, as well as helping with the training and up-skilling of the next generation of industry experts and staff.

Innovation Network partners benefit from an open access to facilities, allowing them to carry out work at TWI headquarters in Cambridge using state-of-the-art equipment in dedicated laboratories.

Innovation Centres

The Innovation Network includes  eight Innovation Centres (ICs) created in partnership with four UK universities and the Transport Systems Catapult. The centres share research and technology capabilities and undertake joint research programmes to develop the next generation of technologies and engineers in selected research disciplines. While each of the centres focuses on different areas of joint industry research, each is closely linked with the  National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC), which carries out industry-led postgraduate research with a focus on materials, joining, and structural integrity technologies.

Accelerated Innovation Programmes

Alongside the Innovation Centres exist a series of Accelerated Innovation Programmes (AIPs) which focus on the immediate interests of  TWI Industrial Member organisations. These partnerships are focused on innovation, with the aim of developing and introducing sector-specific, safety and quality, or product and process advances to maximum effect to drive businesses forward.  With links to the Innovation Centres, these AIPs use TWI’s contacts to help to facilitate the spread of innovation in areas of materials, joining, and structural integrity.

Funding

The Innovation Network has received millions of pounds in funding from InnovateUK and the European Commission to develop projects in oil and gas, power, transport, manufacturing, infrastructure and healthcare technologies, creating benefits for both industry and academia to promote economic growth, productivity, prosperity and close the skills gap in industry.

Find out more about the  Innovation Network by visiting the dedicated website or email  membership.dutymgr@twi.co.uk

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Responding to the needs of industry and academia at TWI

Technology Acceleration Programmes

Providing a source of ideas, knowledge, skills, expertise, and research and innovation opportunites for business, Technology Acceleration Programmes (TAPs) are primarly aimed at SMEs, and concentrate on the immediate interests of TWI Industrial Member companies and TWIIN Subscriber companies/organisations. Their aim it to develop and bring to market, sector or technology specific new products,  processes and systems, driving businesses forward to maximum effect, and helping to facilitate the spread of innovation in materials, manufacturing and engineering.

Private Technology Innovation Partnerships

Working closely with research sponsors to address their technology priorities, Private Technology Innovation Partnerships (PTIPs) work towards the commercialisation of technology, in partnership with various stakeholders such as manufacturers and materials suppliers. The Non-metallic Innovation Centre (NIC) is a PTIP between TWI, Saudi Aramco Technologies Company and ADNOC which is developing new, composite, non-metallic pipeline technologies through the transformation of fundamental research.

Technology Innovation Management

TWI's Technology Innovation Management (TIM) team has helped SMEs, RTOs and TWI Industrial Member companies win millions of pounds in funding from InnovateUK and the European Commission to develop projects in oil and gas, power, transport, manufacturing, infrastructure, healthcare and other sectors, creating benefits for both industry and academia, promoting economic growth, productivity and prosperity, and closing the skills gap in industry.

Find out more about the TWI Innovation Network (TWIIN) by visiting the dedicated website or email to info@twi-innovation-network.com for more details.

For more information please email:


contactus@twi.co.uk