LONDON, UK - 10 Aug 2009: The University of York has enhanced its links with industry by joining IBM UK’s University Relations Program. The aim is to expand the scope of the resources and experiences offered to students, better preparing them for the careers of tomorrow with skills that will stimulate growth and drive innovation.
IBM experts drawn from its UK workforce of over 20,000, including master inventors and distinguished engineers, will give guest lectures and seminars, support curriculum development, work as visiting professors and undertake collaborative research activities with staff and students. Students and academic staff will also have free access to IBM software through its Academic Initiative programme to complement teaching activities and to aid research.
York’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Brian Cantor, said “The University of York has a long-standing and productive relationship with IBM and see this as a hugely important strategic collaboration. This partnership agreement defines a framework to support the process of identifying and pursuing opportunities in teaching, research and enterprise and will expand York’s capacity to deliver impact from our world-class knowledge base.”
“This type of collaboration is particularly valuable in the current technology development environment, which increasingly depends on innovation networks that span industry and academic research,” he continued.
Brendon Riley, Chief Executive of IBM UK and Ireland added “The planet faces fundamental issues such as the control of carbon emissions, managing stressed infrastructures in cities, speeding drug development, managing energy supply and better analysis of financial risk. In order to support the growth of systems and industries that will address these challenges, we need students to develop a unique skill-set never seen before”
“Students will have to combine critical thinking, creativity and innovation with leadership, global awareness and technology literacy. Consequently, IBM is working closely with leading universities to build up these skills to keep the UK at the forefront of the knowledge based economy,” he continued.
IBM strongly identifies with York’s research into the global effects of population growth and demographics, development of information and communication technologies and sustainable development for future generations.
The university’s performance in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise places it among the top ten institutions in the UK and the top 100 in the world for research.
IBM already supports joint research projects with the university. The Department of Computer Science is a leading UK academic contributor to the International Technology Alliance, an IBM-led consortium that undertakes a research program for the US Army Research Laboratory and the UK Ministry of Defence (http://www.usukita.org/). The Department is recognised for the high quality of its research, teaching and technology transfer, particularly to industry and UK government. It teaches courses which are highly relevant to emerging trends in professional IT in industry and commerce and its graduates are widely sought by industry. This announcement is a strategic extension to this existing relationship.
Staff and students will have access to experts from amongst the 3,000 staff at IBM Hursley, Europe’s largest software development lab, whose work includes developing the software that underpins the billions of financial transactions made globally every day. IBM invested $6.2billion in research and development worldwide in 2008 and has been present in the UK for almost six decades.
Notes to editors.
IBM has major collaborations with eight further establishments in its UK University Relations program. Mainly, these relationships include collaborative research with technical and business faculties as well as traditional recruitment activities. In many cases, IBM employees sit on advisory boards or occupy visiting professorships. Some particular associations are as follows:
Cambridge
Following an IBM sponsored conference on the education needs of a service economy (see http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ssme/), IBM has contributed material on service innovation to the MBA course at the Judge Business School. IBM also supports services research at the Institute for Manufacturing and at the Centre for India & Global Business.
Edinburgh
IBM recently announced a five-year joint research project to use supercomputing simulations combined with lab experiments to speed the design of drugs aimed at inhibiting infection by the HIV virus. ( http://www-03.ibm.com/press/uk/en/pressrelease/23799.wss )
Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is collaborating with IBM to develop an innovative business model of a university, addressing operational and academic systems. Another aspect of this collaboration is the production of service-related material for the MBA course.
London - Imperial
IBM is collaborating with the Taneka Business School on several projects concerning the digital economy. In addition, the engineering faculty is collaborating on research into the global issues confronting cities and, in particular, the transport problems within them.
Manchester
IBM is working closely with the Informatics department and the Business School on a variety of projects, particularly in services research. Through its association with the new Centre for Services Research, IBM is actively supporting the SSMEnetUK project (http://www.ssmenetuk.org/) which is an EPSRC-funded network of UK researchers interested in Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME).
Oxford
IBM and the Oxford Internet Institute are working on how collaboration, social networking, citizenship, security and trust are affected by the internet. In addition, the University provides specially designed courses to IBM employees through the Said Business School and the Computer Science department.
Southampton
IBM Hursley has a long-standing relationship with the University of Southampton, where several senior technical experts are visiting professors or advisory board members. In particular, IBM was the principal industrial collaborator for the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute (http://www.omii.ac.uk/) and provided the first Chief Architect to the project.
Warwick
IBM collaborates with the Warwick Manufacturing Group, the Business School and the new Digital Laboratory. Notable work continues on reducing carbon footprints by developing a realistic commercial virtual environment to provide the experience of foreign locations without the need to travel (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/universities-of.html). IBM is also supporting research on the security of electronic data and on complexity science.
About IBM
For more information about IBM, please visit: http://www.ibm.com
Contact(s) information
Chris Steel
UK External Relations
0207 021 9760
chris.steel@uk.ibm.com
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