In recent weeks NITL staff have been guests at a number of universities in Scotland, Wales and England as part of its ongoing academic collaboration with logistics and SCM centres of excellence.
With a history dating back to 1821, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh has established a reputation for world-class teaching and practical, leading-edge research, which has made us one of the top UK universities for business and industry. It currently has over 1,600 staff and 20,000 students across a range of disciplines. Heriot-Watt’s Logistics Research Centre (LRC), led by Professor Alan McKinnon, is a comprehensive logistics research and teaching facility that provides government and industry with insights into logistical trends, transport benchmarking and road use throughout the UK and Europe – see http://www.sml.hw.ac.uk/research/lrc.htm for further information. NITL has worked with the LRC for a number of years mainly in the areas of ICT adoption in 3PLs, green logistics and SCM implementation issues.
The University of Wales was founded in the late 19th century as a federal university. Today it is a unitary institution responsible for validating degrees for more than 40,000 students in Wales and 20,000 students overseas. It works with several types of institution or organisation, for which it provides a range of services including the award of its degrees, diplomas and certificates. “Accredited Institutions” are those institutions of higher education within Wales where the University is the degree awarding body for most of the students. These institutions include Aberystwyth University, Swansea University, Bangor University and Swansea Metropolitan University.
Swansea Metropolitan University (SMU) has been a major centre for the delivery of vocational higher education since 1853. It currently employs more than 500 staff and teaches over 6,500 students. The School of Logistics and Manufacturing Engineering resides within the Faculty of Applied Design and Engineering (see http://www.smu.ac.uk/index.php/potential-students/faculty-of-applied-design-and-engineering/lme). The logistics side of the School incorporates transport and SCM and also offers a unique and highly successful honours degree programme in Motorsport Management, in addition to a number of M.Sc. programmes. Its research is carried out in close collaboration with local and international business.
The University of Huddersfield has over 24,000 students across a range of disciplines based in its seven academic schools. The University is now home to the biggest specialist team of teaching staff dedicated to teaching transport and logistics in the UK (see http://www2.hud.ac.uk/sas/trans/index.php). It has been delivering courses in this area for over a quarter of a century and has built up an excellent reputation domestically and internationally. DIT has long had a close relationship with Huddersfield’s Transport and Logistics Division and NITL has built on these links since its inception. The Division runs a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programme, as well as carrying out research under the aegis of the Transport and Logistics Research and Enterprise Unit (TLREU).
NITL looks forward to working with colleagues over the coming years to build upon these mutually beneficial collaborations.