Network Rail and Royal Academy of Engineering’s jointly
funded Research Chairs (Past and Present):
Professor John Andrews, University of Nottingham: Professor
Andrews’ work is about modelling the status and the maintenance
and renewal activities on railway infrastructure assets, though
the work has implications for other complex infrastructure areas
such as the gas and water utilities and other kinds of transport. The
aim then is to model the effects of different kinds of maintenance
management strategies to optimise decision-making in terms of
safety, continuing operation and cost.
Professor Rod Smith, Imperial College London: Research
undertaken by Professor Smith, resulted in developments in rail
energy research, improvements in infrastructure and support for UK
high speed rail.
achieve. Short-range, quick-delivery
research projects can have instant
appeal and obvious value, but the
value can be harder to demonstrate.
Especially, with the long-term and
strategic research of the type done by
Professor Andrews and other university
partnerships, the research horizon is
measured in terms of years or even
decades and the value can be harder to
demonstrate. Even so, Dr Zanelli said
he has been encouraged by attitudes
throughout Network Rail: “Even people
who are very focused on specific shortterm issues are saying that they worry
about the long term and see the real
necessity for the kind of work Professor
Andrews is doing,” he said.
Measuring the impact
Professor John Andrew’s Research
Chair is different from Network Rail’s
other strategic university partnerships
in terms of the degree of autonomy
that John Andrews and his team are
given, along with the freedom to ask
fundamental questions.
That kind of thinking is absolutely
necessary as part of the overall
research strategy in Network Rail,
said Dr Zanelli. “There has been
a tendency in the rail industry, for
attention to be focused on local
issues rather than systems and that
has applied in research as well as
in investment. Deeper underlying
strategic problems and opportunities
can get overlooked in the rush to
tackle immediate and obvious areas of
work”, he said.
Direct results are expected from
Professor Andrews’ research. But
the fact that the research is looking
into the interaction and interplay of
different elements as a whole is highly
relevant in terms of demonstrating the
value of a systems approach and of
innovation strategy.
Professor Andrews has direct contact
with many people inside Network R