This project responded to contribute to filling the gaps in skills, talent and training for the power electronics, machines and drives (PEMD) industry. It is funded via the competition: Driving the electric revolution – building talent for the future.
Motivation
- Power electronics is too often a hidden industry that contributes nearly £50bn annually to the UK economy with over 400 identifiable companies and organisations operating in the space.
- The supply chain supports 82,000 high-value jobs in design and manufacture, of which 50,000 are at the graduate level.
- One of the challenges recognized by Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) is to ensure a good supply of talented Power Electronics engineers.
- Inability to recruit high-quality Engineers would make global companies move their design and manufacturing out of the UK. Furthermore, the fact that fewer UK students accepting a place to study EEE would make the problem worse
The Idea
The project aim is twofold
- Bringing more awareness to this industry at a department level
- This can be achieved by holding knowledge transfer workshops at a departmental level from the power electronics industry covering switches material, electronics driving, packaging and testing
- Preparing highly skilled engineers for this industry
- This can be achieved by developing a model framework of Power Electronics curriculum at vocational universities where it is supported by industry members by feeding into the curriculum and coursework design via holding workshops beside providing mentorship to the students. The project will also introduce the Freelancing concepts and routes where they discover technical and management skills development.
Launch
The project duration is 3 months and launched on the first of February 2022 at Sheffield Hallam University.