Brunel University

Brunel University is a research led university with a well-established reputation for international research excellence. The University’s location, close to Heathrow Airport in the west of London, is a particular advantage for joint European activity. The university has procured over 40 European Commission funded contracts over the last 3 years and is managing several FP6 projects. The School of Engineering and Design at Brunel gained a Research Assessment Exercise rating of ‘5’ for General Engineering. It is home to one of the United Kingdom’s leading undergraduate programmes in product design. This course has a strong focus on the robust design of small electronic products. The academic staff have a particular interest in stimulating creativity at the arts/technology interface.

The Cleaner Electronics research group at Brunel is an interdisciplinary research group with interests in the design and manufacture of electronic products. Academic staff within the group have expertise in electronic design, wireless telecommunications, mechanical design and product ergonomics. While investigating cleaner, additive approaches to electronic manufacturing, they developed the lithographic printing process as a route to produce printed electronics. They have patented and successfully licensed work in this area. Researchers within the group previously worked with Kings College and ArjoWiggins on the Paper++ project, designing and fabricating a comb reader. Over the last ten years the group has been awarded six EPSRC funded projects in printed electronics, and coordinated a Framework V project, (ADSM, Active Disassembly with Smart Materials), on the self disassembly of electronic products. These projects have involved close collaboration with a number of industrial partners including Sony, Motorola, Nokia, and
Nortel.