Jaguar to build innovation campus at uni

Jaguar Land Rover is creating a £100m ($170m) ‘brains trust’ campus at a UK university to pioneer development of future ‘green’ and hi-tech sports and luxury cars. The campus will bring academics from the UK’s leading universities together with researchers and engineers from Jaguar Land Rover and their suppliers in a single state-of-the-art research facility, the carmaker said.

Construction of the 2787sqm National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) at Warwick University will begin in September next year. Around 1000 academics, researchers, technologists and engineers will work in the building, which will feature engineering workshops and laboratories, advanced powertrain facilities and the latest advanced design, visualisation and rapid prototyping technologies.

In addition, the carmaker will more than double the size of its advanced research team to 500 by the time it opens in 2016. JLR, which is owned by India’s Tata and led by chief executive Ralf Speth, said the move would bring academics from the UK’s leading universities together with researchers and engineers from Jaguar Land Rover and its supply chain.

JLR is the lead partner in the project investing £50m ($85m), along with Tata Motors’ European Technical Centre, the Warwick Manufacturing Group and the UK Government’s Higher Education Funding Council England.

Dr Wolfgang Epple, Jaguar Land Rover’s director of research and technology, said: "Investing in collaboration, innovation, research and education is vital if we want to be on a par with our international competitors."