Monday, 21 July 2025
Training and development for the food and drink sector will be enhanced with a new partnership that will bring together sector leading industry and academic expertise.
The University of Nottingham is partnering with Briggs of Burton to launch a new training academy that will provide theoretical and practical training to its staff and valuable hands-on experience for students. The University’s Faculty of Engineering will also be collaborating with Briggs of Burton, exploring world-leading research and future innovation together.
The International Centre for Brewing Science is a centre of excellence for brewing education and research at the University of Nottingham and is where Briggs of Burton designed and built a ‘Research Pilot Brewery’ for the University that has been operating successfully for 14 years. The centre will now be expanded to offer theoretical and practical training to equip Briggs’ teams with the expert knowledge needed to deliver projects for customers, and generate a new talent pipeline of mechanical, electrical/control, chemical/process, and industrial automation/software engineers.
The Research Pilot Brewery is a production operational environment and a working factory that features a high level of instrumentation and control and automation. Using this as a training facility will allow the Briggs team and students to directly explore and enhance their skills across topics such as hygienic process design, industrial process control, and health and safety operations.
Experts from the University of Nottingham and Briggs of Burton will join forces to deliver a blend of theory and practical training on site. The training will include: practical hands-on brewing experience days, process engineering deep-dives, and health and safety training workshops.
The partnership will also provide opportunities for wider industry engagement and collaboration as the Research Pilot Brewery will be used as a hub for manufacturers, suppliers and customers to explore and learn more about the hygienic process.
Our new partnership with Briggs of Burton further strengthens our position as a leading centre for excellence in brewing research. This is an exciting new partnership which showcases how industry and the university can work closely together. It allows us to support Brigg’s objectives to be a sector-leader, creates new research projects and new employment pathways for our students.
Robert Buxton, CEO of Briggs of Burton said: “The Research Pilot Brewery at the University still surprises people with respect to its design, layout, finish, and sophisticated instrumentation/control. Supporting the learning and development of our current and future work-force is a major focus for our business and providing further hands-on access to this excellent facility and worldclass teaching from the team at the University will be provide opportunities to members of our own team and potential future engineers.”
This new partnership brings another global-leading organisation onto our campus to benefit from our unique ecosystem. It is a relationship that is driven by excellence. Combining the very best of our facilities and technical staff with a truly sector-leading company. We are proud to support the ambitions of Briggs to develop their outstanding workforce alongside creating important new opportunities for our students to interact directly with industry. This is just the starting point of what is going to be a very exciting partnership.
Briggs of Burton have a near 300 year legacy in delivering safe, efficient, and sustainable process systems across the food, beverage, and life science industries. They also built the SABMiller (later ABInBev) 10 hL pilot plant and the University 40 L nanobrewery brewline at the University of Nottingham’s Bioenergy & Brewing Science building and have supported teaching of fundamental brewing engineering disciplines. Its Global Technical Centre is headquartered in Burton on Trent, UK, with network of sales and engineering offices, and production sites spanning the US, Mexico, Scotland, and China.
Story credits
More information is available from Jane Icke, Media Relations Manager for the Faculty of Science at the University of Nottingham on jane.icke@nottingham.ac.uk. For Briggs of Burton media enquiries please contact briggs@spey.scot
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 97 in the world and 17th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the third most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2024 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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