Yufeng Zhang is a Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management, and supports collaborative working between the University and China in Engineering and Social Sciences.
EC-HVEN provides a cross-disciplinary research platform drawing together engineering, management and social sciences for global network collaboration in high value engineering, advanced manufacturing and innovation. The research framework builds on leading expertise in Europe and China along the whole engineering value chain (EVC) from research, design, development and production, to delivery, service, support, recycling and disposal.
EC-HVEN activities target a frontier research area of increasing importance worldwide by focusing on a range of complex problems and challenges in engineering operations on a global scale. Main research themes include emerging technologies and industrial policy, engineering design and innovation, international manufacturing and engineering, global engineering services, engineering for industrial sustainability, and ICT networks for high value engineering.
EC-HVEN involves above 100 researchers worldwide. The project has been supported by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union under Marie Curie Actions from 2012 to 2016. The project is coordinated by the University of Birmingham and has seven founding partners as well as a wider range of academic and industrial collaborators, including Cambridge University, Technical University of Denmark, Harbin Institute of Technology, Tsinghua, Zhejiang, and Shanghai Jiao Tong universities. The China Institute provides a very helpful platform for our engagement with Chinese academics, industrialists and policymakers.
Our work shapes the agenda for future high value engineering research on an international platform, and will eventually place international engineering collaboration on a solid base of scientific theories and enabling technologies. We are providing an open and interactive research environment involving researchers, practitioners and policymakers to collectively explore novel approaches to sustainable industrial and societal developments in the changing global landscape of engineering.
We have completed a wide range of research tasks through successful collaboration with China and organised over 50 workshops, seminars and conferences in important high value engineering areas. The latest project meeting took place at the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in September 2015. After the meeting, our project members were invited to attend the 2nd Global Grant Challenges Summit organised by the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), the National Academy of Engineering (US), and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (China).