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David Edwards

David Edwards

Professor of Plant and Machinery Management

School of Engineering and the Built Environment - ENG
Email:
david.edwards@bcu.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0)121 331 6252

David has accrued considerable leadership and management experience in the roles of teaching, award management and development, quality enhancement, student liaison and the national student survey (NSS), academic administration and research at a number of higher education institutes in this country and abroad.

He is currently a Professor of Plant and Equipment Management at Birmingham City University, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment. David has also led on the development of extensive multidisciplinary collaborations between and within faculties, having worked across a wide variety of scientific fields, namely: business studies; finance; construction management; human resource management; computing; civil engineering; quarry management; mechanical engineering; and humanities – this modus operandi has augmented his personal philosophy and belief that the whole is greater than the sum of individual parts.

David is well respected by his peers and acts as a referee for under-/post-graduate awards and PhDs at various national and international higher education institutes. In an industrial/ governmental context, he has formed comprehensive networks, teaching awards and partnered many prestigious organisations such as the UK Ministry of Defence, US Department of Defense, the UK Home Office and British Nuclear Fuels.

Prior to a career in academia, David managed his own business for 10 years and worked as a sub-contractor for some of the UK's largest construction and civil engineering companies. This pragmatic experience and industry focus, has enabled David to develop a professional industrial vocabulary and subsequently accrue extensive 'international' industrial collaborative linkages with both industry and government bodies.

Similarly, his inherently entrepreneurial spirit (first acquired whilst in industry) has also secured a proven track record of invention, for applying innovative processes, embracing entrepreneurship and producing high impact teaching and research outputs. These attributes have helped to secure industrial financial support and provide opportunities for students to become employed at some of the world's leading organisations – employability is high on David's agenda.

His personal vision is that within any University, taught awards, professional practice and research must harmonise and complement one another to help raise academic quality standards and provide tangible societal, political and economic impact together with value for money. He believes that forging strong links between industry, government bodies and academia in a 'multidisciplinary fashion' yields a broad portfolio of mutually beneficial opportunities (including the transference of best practice knowledge, the fostering of a collegiate working environment and the augmentation of faculty/ university performance). Ultimately, high quality teaching must encapsulate the findings of robust, contemporary, professional practice work and research – all within the context that research is a means to an end and not the destination itself.

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