Engineering centre gets approval

Press, 8 November 1984, Page 9

Engineering centre gets approval

A Centre of Advanced Engineering may be established within the University of Canterbury Engineering School. About $2 million will be needed for the project, which has been proposed as part of the commemoration of the Engineering School’s centenary in 1987. Approval for the project to go ahead was given by the University Council at its meeting yesterday. Support from the big engineering companies in New Zealand would now be sought to raise the money needed, said a member of the Engineering Centennial Appeal Committee, Dr

Peter McElroy. Problems of national importance in engineering would be studied at the centre, said Dr McElroy, in a report to the council. Through such a centre the university could offer a dramatic improvement in co-operative and vitally relevant research. “An endowment of the order of $2 million will be needed to generate an investment income which will be sufficient for the basic functioning of the operation,” he said. “If we are to be successful in raising such a sum, support from the major companies of New Zealand

is essential before a broadbased appeal could sensibly be launched.” The purpose of the proposal was significantly to improve transfer of knowledge and expertise between the Engineering School staff and the New Zealand engineering industry. “Most other developed countries already have centres of advanced engineering education and development and to some extent New Zealand is lagging behind,” Dr McElroy said. A similar centre was successfully established in the engineering school of the University of Sydney, he said.