Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed details of the near GBP100m National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) at the UK University of Warwick, scheduled to open in 2016 to provide advanced technology and research.
The Tata-owned automaker is to provide GBP50m of NAIC’s funding, with around GBP15m originating from the UK government, while further partners include Tata Motors European Technical Centre and Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG).
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“It [NAIC] is to attract great brains from around the world and the UK,” JLR director of research and technology, Wolfgang Epple, told a media briefing today (24 September) at Warwick University.
“We have got a lot of attention from suppliers, which indicates to us this will be a world class centre of excellence. There is a huge challenge in the UK, which is skills.
“We need to find and inspire some fire into these [automotive] brains – that young people get interested into engineering…and make a decision to spend their entire life and energy in engineering. That is an additional target for NAIC – to inspire young people.”
Construction of the NAIC building will start shortly, with around 1,000 academics, researchers, technologists and engineers working at the facility, which will feature workshops and laboratories, as well as powertrain, design and visualisation elements.
Around 200 JLR researchers and engineers are currently based at WMG, with the automaker noting by the time NAIC opens in 2016, some 500 staff will work in the advanced research team.
Project details have not yet been unveiled, but JLR head of research, Antony Harper, said: “We will announce the details of the specific research projects in due course, but these will be long-term, multi-disciplinary challenges, such as electrification, smart and connected cars and human machine interface.”
Wolfgang Epple will coordinate development of the new facility, which will complement JLR’s product creation centres in Gaydon and Whitley. The research director has also been appointed Honorary Fellow at Warwick Manufacturing Group.
