Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INNOVATIVE (The Integration of Novel Aerospace Technologies)
Período documentado: 2018-03-01 hasta 2021-08-31
The European Commission has driven this skills agenda and set out a vision for aviation and a future aerospace industry called ‘Flightpath 2050’. The report determined that “A network of multidisciplinary technology clusters” needed to be at the heart of technology development to keep Europe competitive in this strategically important global industry. At the time of publishing, multidisciplinary training tailored to the needs of the aerospace industry was limited.
The EU MSCA COFUND doctoral programme, INNOVATIVE aimed to address this shortfall in multi-disciplinary skills gap and has delivered a step-change in the training of 23 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in aerospace technologies. It has done this by providing a comprehensive programme empowering researchers with a multidisciplinary skillset comprising tools, techniques and methods suitable for pursuing careers in Aerospace Technology and related fields. The 23 ESRs have been distributed across 4 research areas: Aerospace Electrification and Propulsion, Aerospace Materials, Aerospace Manufacturing and Aerospace Operations. Each ESR has worked with leading academics undertaking a PhD in a specific topic and utilised generous funding to pursue technical and professional skills training whilst also disseminating their work at international conferences and high ranked journals. Concurrently, developing their team skills has been at the core of the programme and has seen ESRs design test and manufacture solar powered UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or work in multi-disciplinary teams to develop novel concepts for the Airbus ‘fly your ideas’ international competition. ESRs also gained unrivalled exposure to the aerospace industry through secondments into leading aerospace companies. These secondments have been pivotal to ESRs gaining confidence in their skillset and ability to make an impact in industry and have thus influenced many ERSs choices to enter industry post-graduation and consequently validated the original aims of the programme.
The 23 ESRs also benefited from being based in the supra-disciplinary environment of the Institute for Aerospace Technology (IAT) at the University of Nottingham, which regroups all aerospace interests and activities in the University, from science and engineering, to business, law and political sciences and psychology. To quote ESRs: Dr. Vincenzo Madonna: “Being at IAT has meant I’ve been able to work within a larger, multidisciplinary team and interact with colleagues from other faculties who are working on fuel and propulsion technologies. This has provided me with an overall view of aerospace research at the university, helping me to see how my project fits into an overall vision.” Sarah Shabbir: “Everyone at IAT works in aerospace, but with different scopes – mechanical, electrical, human-factors, etc. The IAT provides interdisciplinary learning – it’s a place where you can bounce ideas off each other and learn through collaboration.”
To date, 9 ERSs have been awarded PhDs with a further 3 expected to complete in Autumn 2021. Remaining ERSs are expected to complete their PhDs in 2022. Currently, the project has produced 90 publications where 5 have been awarded best paper awards and a further 8 publications are multi-discipline with 2 or more ESRs bringing their work together to publish broader scientific papers to address the technological challenges in this sector.
The end of project conference can be found here: https://innovative2020.co.uk/ , the INNOVATIVE digital brochure here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx and out Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/UoNINNOVATIVE.
An outline of impacts are listed below and further details and links to technical papers can be found in our 80 page digital brochure: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx.