HRH Princess Royal officially opened the University’s Boldrewood Innovation Campus on 17 September 2015. The £140m campus is the largest university – business partnership in the UK, uniting Southampton with Lloyd’s Register. The campus is home to the University’s Faculty of Engineering and the Environment and Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, and also Lloyd’s Register’s Global Technology Centre.
During her visit, Princess Anne unveiled a plaque and viewed the state of the art research facilities. When fully completed, the campus will host world-class research infrastructure including an anechoic wind chamber, advanced fluid dynamics experimental facilities, which will be used across a range of disciplines including civil engineering and aerospace, and a 138-metre towing tank that will provide detailed research on new maritime technologies.
The facilities will be complemented by a new National Infrastructure Laboratory, funded by the Government and industry under the UK Collaboration for Research in Infrastructure & Cities (UKCRIC) programme.
The University and Lloyd’s Register have collaborated on projects for over 40 years, and under this partnership will focus on marine engineering and engineering sciences. The aim is to stimulate innovation, create new business and bring jobs and opportunities to the local economy, while also establishing Southampton and the wider South Coast as a magnet for inward investment from the UK and around the world.
Richard Sadler, Chief Executive Officer of Lloyd’s Register, said: “We now have over 400 members of our marine team based at the LR Global Technology Centre on the University of Southampton’s Boldrewood Innovation Campus, putting our practical experts next to the university’s learning and research facilities to stimulate technical innovation. The campus is redefining the relationship between academia and business, providing a fertile environment for unique collaborative projects.”
