Participants included students and academics from SAMBa, the Departments of Mathematical Sciences, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, and external participants from the universities of Exeter, Torino, Chalmers and São Paulo.

Our partners for ITT3 were the Met Office, GKN and Airbus. They presented a number of problems around climate analysis, space weather forecasting and materials design. Participants worked in small teams to reformulate these problems into mathematical approaches, which were then presented by students on Friday afternoon.

Professor Richard Butler, who led the interaction with GKN and Airbus said: “The ITT was a fantastic week and we made important steps towards finding innovative solutions to challenges faced in industrial strategy, design, manufacture, and certification of aerospace structures. I was really impressed by the students who were able to present their ideas so confidently and clearly.”

Colin Morice, from the Met Office said: “I found the experience really worthwhile and enjoyed spending time working intensively on research problems with the SAMBa cohort during the ITT. The open format allowed us to explore different approaches to those we traditionally use and we hope we can continue to pursue these in collaboration with SAMBa.”

More to come

There are many things to work on now the ITT itself is over. This includes exploring potential PhD projects in collaboration with the ITT partners and working with the Bath Institute for Mathematical Innovation (IMI) to develop some short-term ideas that were identified during the ITT.

Students will write up their efforts from the week and propose future work in the form of a grant proposal. These will form a technical record of discussions that will be used as a foundation for further collaboration.

SAMBa student, Ben Robinson said: “It was great to get the chance to identify mathematical themes in different industrial areas and to contribute to progress on a real world problem.”

Next ITT coming soon

ITT4 will take place in June 2016 with partners Astra Zeneca and NHS Research. We're already looking forward to another successful and enjoyable week.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the ITT model or attending an ITT week, please contact the SAMBa Centre Manager, Dr Susie Douglas.

Past ITT events