University of Bradford project to help firms 'adopt robotics'

A West Yorkshire university has received funding for a multimillion-pound robotics project to help companies use the technology to expand their businesses.

The £3.67m Yorkshire Robotics Hub in Bradford is hoping to bridge the "automation gap", the city's university said, and has been partially funded by government body Innovate UK.

The University of Bradford said the programme would help businesses "adopt robotics and automation technologies", working with more than 300 manufacturers.

Professor Sherif El-Khamisy, the university's Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Global Engagement, said the project was not aiming to reduce human jobs.

"It will generate and create new jobs in fact, because the more we start adopting those robotics and automations in the production the more demand would be for the engineers and the experts," he said.

"Robotics doesn't mean that a robot that can bring you something in a restaurant or something like that.

"It is about enabling businesses to have automations embedded in their manufacturing pipeline to increase the efficiency of the production."

The project brings together the University of Bradford, West Yorkshire Manufacturing Services, the University of Huddersfield and Olympus Technologies.

According to the university, the UK currently operates about 104 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees - well below the global average of 177.

The hub will operate across Yorkshire, it added, focused on the M62 and M1/A1 industrial corridors.

Professor El-Khamisy said the project would also benefit the university by allowing it to build relationships with local companies and improve knowledge and research.

"We have a civic responsibility to the community, society and the region," he said.

"It will allow the university to fulfil that civic mission more efficiently and more robustly by having direct access to local companies and upskilling the workforce."

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