Interact project work continues

Professor Jill MacBryde, Professor Colin Lindsay and Robert Stewart, along with colleagues from Loughborough hosted a research sandpit as part of our ESRC funded InterAct project. The challenge was to develop research proposals that would help the diffusion of industrial digital technologies to help manufacturing. Jill said, “We had a fantastic three days at Loughborough and saw enthusiasm of social scientists delving into the digital technology challenges confronting the manufacturing sector and the subsequent discussions.

“We heard about the real world context of challenges to manufacturing in-person from the MTC's David Brackett and via videos courtesy of a number of manufacturing leaders including John Burdett, Troy Barratt, Jim Walters, Martin Welsh and Russell Watkins. Our attendees also had a chance to visit some of the laboratories with research funded by EPSRC through Made Smarter Innovation. We will be announcing winners of funding in the coming weeks.”

Next up Strathclyde will be hosting an InterAct Future of Manufacturing Work Discovery Day in the Business School on June 1 in conjunction with Flexibility Works. From 9.30am-12.30pm we will be hearing from four manufacturing companies about how they are changing work and introducing more flexibility to help recruit and retain talent.  InterAct are also hosting a summer school for early career researchers in Letterkenny in July. More information can be found on the InterAct website https://interact-hub.org/

Published: 6 June 2023