As a Centre that enjoys communicating and engaging with the rest of the world, it seems surprising that we have got to 2019 without broadcasting on every channel available. The good news is that this is changing!
I am delighted to formally open the BCRRE Blog by cutting the metaphorical ribbon and declaring this Blog open for business.
We are currently in a phase of exciting development with a number of new staff joining us, a new home currently being built on the University campus, new educational courses being developed and delivered and a huge amount of cutting-edge R&D being undertaken across our academic group.
Various members of the team will be introducing themselves and their work on this Blog and I trust it will offer a much greater insight into the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education and the sheer breadth of our activities. We will also be making much greater use of our social media channels on Twitter and LinkedIn to raise our profile and awareness of the work we do.
In recent months we have worked to bring together our plans and activities into two documents that were launched at the most recent InnoTrans in Berlin last September – our 2017/18 annual report and our first strategic business plan.
This year will see further growth and a number of exciting projects move forward in development. We will be taking part in a number of events through the year: the RIA Innovation Conference in March, Railtex in May and Rail Live in June are just three that are now rapidly approaching. These events are a great opportunity to showcase the projects we are working on and for the team to engage with the rail industry and our wider stakeholder community.
That is a great part of the job for us – working with the industry to identify the problems that need solving and then applying ourselves to developing solutions to those problems. We are working to build the railway of the future. The BCRRE Blog will give readers an insight into how are going about that.
Alex Burrows, Director