Innovate UK has awarded funding for a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) to Keltbray Group and City, University of London.
The award of funding follows on from the signing of a collaboration agreement last month between City and Keltbrayto develop innovative technical solutions to efficiencies in the design and construction of foundations.
The KTP scheme, led by Innovate UK, helps businesses to innovate and grow by linking them with an academic or research organisation through the employment of a dedicated, full time, research associate, and the provision of academic resources.
The idea is for Keltbray to gain new skills and access to the latest advances in science and technology in order to deliver a specific, strategic innovation project. A City graduate has now been appointed as KTP research associate to lead the project and will be working in Keltbray鈥檚 offices for the duration of the grant, creating direct links to the research setting.
Stuart Norman, managing director of Keltbray Piling, said: 鈥淭hese are exciting times for Keltbray and we are pleased that our collaboration with City is already beginning to bear fruit. The KTP itself promises to deliver ground breaking research with the intention for Keltbray to launch new products and services in the latter half of next year. We are aiming for these to deliver unprecedented levels of efficiency.鈥�
Keltbray鈥檚 innovation director, Michael Pelken, said: 鈥淭his momentous cross-sector collaboration and the associated knowledge and technology transfer create completely new possibilities that are anticipated to deliver significant short-, mid- and long-term impacts for us and the industry at large. The research will focus on sustainability, productivity and new forms of emerging best practice models from design to construction.鈥�
City鈥檚 Dr Andrew McNamara, senior lecturer in civil engineering and director of its Centre of Excellence in Temporary Works & Construction Method Engineering, said: 鈥淎s principal investigator (PI) for this KTP, I am looking forward to experimenting, exploring and developing a sustainable, but more importantly, a practical foundation solution for industry.鈥�
The project is intended to run from next month to December 2020.
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