Chris is a Programme Manager in the Engagement team within the Department of Engineering at Lancaster University. He helps to secure, manage and deliver business-support initiatives, enabling collaboration between academia and industry. This includes access to facilities, expertise, R&D, talent (student and graduate) and networks to support business growth. Chris is responsible for the co-ordination of in-curricula student-industry projects at undergraduate and postgraduate levels as part of MEng and MSc programmes. Chris is the Module Leader for ENGR 445 (Industry-linked Group Projects) and is the Department’s joint Employability Champion.
The Engineering Engagement team is a small, friendly group focussed towards helping businesses (particularly SMEs) to collaborate with the university primarily in designing, building and testing new products. The team’s expertise lies broadly within mechanical design, design for manufacture, rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and a range of additive technologies (or 3D printing) to support fabrication. The team are also able to draw on broader Engineering skills, expertise and facilities to collaborate with industry partners, depending on specific needs.
The Engineering Engagement team is part of a wider partnerships function, encompassing Physical Sciences, which includes the Departments of Chemistry and Physics as well as interdisciplinary centres of excellence (such as Energy Lancaster, Materials Science Institute and the Cockcroft Institute). We collaborate regularly with other faculties and departments as well as external organisations to undertake interdisciplinary research and benefit from synergistic approaches to problem solving.
Since the establishment of the Engineering Engagement team in 2002, we have undertaken more than 1200 collaborative projects with external partners, including SMEs, large enterprises, public bodies and charitable organisations.
Chris’s research interests are in the area of university-industry collaboration. He is a part-time PhD student in the Department of Educational Research, supervised by Prof Paul Ashwin. The focus of this research is on the role, impact and interaction of Engineering graduates with innovation in SMEs and a focus towards transferable skills.
Chris has been working in this area for over seventeen years helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to grow through accelerating R&D. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
