The University of Salford (www.salford.ac.uk) has launched two new manufacturing facilities for students — the Engine Room and the Maker Space — with the support of Lancashire-based engineering recruitment specialist Morson Group.

The Engine Room features heavy-duty industrial-grade machinery typically found in the workshops of manufacturing businesses, while the Maker Space features a ‘print hive’ kitted out with a range of 3-D printers.

Both areas will involve collaboration between the university and local businesses to innovate and to test ideas.

Maria Stukoff, director of the Maker Space, said: “This is a flagship for Salford to attract the next generation of engineers and to enable industry to recruit from our talent pool.

"It is exciting to be working alongside Morson Group to build on our manufacturing pedigree, which gave birth to the first engineering courses dating back to the Industrial Revolution.”

Meanwhile, five universities (including Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and Liverpool John Moores) have signed up to a new Industry 4.0 curriculum launched by Siemens (called the Connected Curriculum).

They will work with Siemens to bring advanced industrial tools, data and approaches into their courses, including Siemens’ MindSphere platform, which connects industrial machines and devices, allowing data from multiple sources to be captured and analysed simultaneously to give a real-time picture of whole production processes.