Prince presents Coventry Uni with advanced engineering honour

Published by

Nicky Godding

Coventry University’s Institute of Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) has been presented with a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize at Buckingham Palace for its pioneering work in creating industry-ready graduates.

The awards were presented at a ceremony with His Royal Highness Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, which celebrated achievements in higher and further education.

Queen’s Anniversary Prizes are granted by Her Majesty the Queen every two years and recognise excellence, innovation and education in the work carried out by UK colleges and universities. They are the highest national honour to be awarded to further and higher education institutions.

AME, a unique partnership between Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing Group, has developed a new way of helping engineering and manufacturing graduates become "industry ready".

Known as the UK’s first ‘faculty on the factory floor’, it gives students direct access to live manufacturing projects and access to new technologies in a bid to future-proof and accelerate their careers.

More than 200 students have completed or are working towards their degrees, utilising the latest robotics, automation and welding technology.

AME's technology specialists and professors work together to help develop new powertrain and energy transfer solutions for automotive aerospace and renewables.

Projects have included lightweight exhaust systems, fuel tanks for hybrid vehicles and battery energy storage systems, working with a number of leading automotive companies in the process.

Professor Carl Perrin, Director of the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, said: “The Queen’s Anniversary Prize is a proud moment for both Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing Group - we took an ambitious approach to pitching industry and academia together and it has paid off.

“AME thrives on the fact that the engineering experience starts the minute a student begins their course, not at the end of it and this ‘hands-on’ approach creates graduates that have an immediate positive impact when they join a company. This is reflected in excellent employability and extremely high student satisfaction.

“We have a lot of exciting things planned for the AME model and this includes a new expansion in 2020, more global partnerships and the launch of Manufacturing Apprenticeships.”

Professor John Latham CBE, Vice-Chancellor at Coventry University, said: “We are incredibly proud of AME and the partnership’s incredible success so far and are honoured to have received a Queen’s Anniversary Prize.

“The prize is testimony to the valuable work the partnership achieves and the students who have engaged with AME are also a shining example of the benefits the partnership can bring by producing industry-ready graduates with the skills, knowledge and expertise the sector needs.”

AME develops skilled graduate engineers to address the growing skills shortage in the engineering and manufacturing sector. There is a need for an additional 1.8 million engineers by 2025 and 67% of UK manufacturers say they are worried about the future of skilled staff for their business.

Among the representatives from the university attending the presentation were a number of current and past students who have engaged with AME to achieve excellent results within their courses and improve their employability.

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.