Professor/Reader Manufacturing Automation (600440)

Posting date:	08 December 2025
Hours:	Full time
Closing date:	07 January 2026
Location:	Glasgow, Scotland
Remote working:	Hybrid - work remotely up to 2 days per week
Company:	University of Strathclyde
Job type:	Permanent
Job reference:	600440

Summary

The Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) is an internationally leading department, Delivering Total Engineering solutions for responsible and sustainable futures. We seek to appoint a Professor/Reader in Manufacturing Automation, with the post expected to commence as soon as possible. DMEM brings together expertise in creative and engineering design, manufacturing, and engineering operations management. Our research centres and groups focus on through-life product and system development, with core themes spanning creativity and innovation, materials exploration, sustainability, and advanced technology. We are proud of our substantial and well-established collaborations with academic and industrial partners across the world. With more than 150 staff, including the technical specialist centres, more than 80 Postgraduate Research (PGR) students both PhD and EngD/Industrial Doctorates, and more than PGT and UG 650 students from over 30 nations, we are a vibrant, international community. Come join, collaborate, innovate, and lead.

The need for manufacturing experts is on the rise. Are you passionate about working on global challenge and societal transitions, including manufacturing, energy, transport, space, or agri-food systems, industrial and healthcare logistics, or smart construction as it relates to manufacturing? And are you thriving on theory-driven and empirically-validated research excellence, learning and teaching with and for engineering leaders of the future? We’d love to hear from you on your research interests and ambition, particularly in Net Zero, evolving new-generation manufacturing/production systems for sustainable manufacturing, and the industrial ecology more widely. Join us, bringing both your passion for addressing societal, economic and environmental challenges, and your disciplinary expertise, particularly in future and advanced manufacturing automation.

This may include but not limited to Manufacturing Automation, and their applications to Smart Manufacturing for Sustainability, e.g., AI/Data-driven Manufacturing Processes and Control, Advanced Metrology and Inspection, Systems/Tools for in-process Quality Control, Robotic Handling for Production Systems, Autonomous Devices/Systems, Human-Machine Interfaces, Highly Resilient and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, as well as IoT, Cloud-based, and Cybersecure Production Systems, and Digital Factory.

Manufacturing automation with its interfaces to design and engineering management across the supply chain is central to DMEM. Our focus is on ensuring strong connectivity between the engineering and product design activities and the manufacturing processes that will ultimately be used to make, and later re-make or re-manufacture the products. This work has significant implications for supply-chain configurations, and consequently, waste and emissions. Given the global challenge of climate change and the substantial impact of products and their manufacturing processes on the environment, research, knowledge exchange, education, and skills training in this field are becoming increasingly important. Opportunities in this area are expected to grow over the coming years, aligned with the global transition to a net-zero economy.

DMEM is currently well positioned in the manufacturing automation and robotics area and has successfully built a mechatronics systems lab and robotics and autonomous systems research group with applications in smart collaborative applications esp. within industrial application areas including space, health, and agri-food as it relates to manufacturing. The proposed post would complement this activity and would focus on the development of manufacturing automation strategies and methods, including smart, digital manufacturing. Furthermore, the postholder would work with manufacturing teams within the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS Group) to provide sustainable design and manufacturing expertise for collaborative research and industrial projects and related High Value Manufacturing Catapult activity. There will also be additional opportunities through Glasgow City Innovation District (GCID) and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS) and the regional deals all of which have a net zero focus.

Over recent years, Strathclyde in general and DMEM in particular has positioned itself well to deliver across these areas with collaborative teams across the University incorporating resources and expertise from Business, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Engineering faculties. This capability is exemplified through cross-department and cross-faculty initiatives such as the EPSRC Centre for Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC), the Scottish Institute for Remanufacturing (SIR), and the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), with significant opportunities the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), Glasgow City Innovation District (GCID), the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS), and wider strategic engagements such as with the Ayrshire Regional Deal and the Rosyth Innovation Park. The successful candidate is keen to build on this platform for further new initiatives and research excellence. Major opportunities also include links with Health & Care Futures / Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, large infrastructure investments Scotland and the UK, public-public-private large partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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