The GENERAL BOARD beg leave to report to the University as follows:
1. The Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy has a distinguished record, contributing significantly to academic leadership of the field and to industrial materials technology at an international level. The Department was awarded the top 5* rating in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise and is consistently rated the top 'Materials Technology' department in the UK (Times/THE). Members of the Department are working on internationally leading research on a wide range of materials, improving existing materials, and creating new ones. Through the number and quality of its research students, the Department is a key provider of expertise in the materials field, its alumni hold influential positions in academia, industry, and commerce throughout the world and many of its academic staff have a close relationship with industry.
2. Steel, with an annual production of over a billion tonnes, is the predominant high-strength material. Steel production and processing contribute significantly to world energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Yet steel is in many ways environmentally friendly, being particularly easy to recycle. While steel may be seen to represent a mature technology, it is a broad family of materials within which key breakthroughs are being made into new areas of high performance. Existing research on steels has led to much of the fundamental understanding now relevant for an even broader range of materials science. In terms of both fundamental science and engineering application, steel research is a vital part of a balanced modern materials research effort.
3. An opportunity to pursue steels research at the highest level has now arisen as Tata Steel (UK) Ltd wishes to endow a Professorship in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, to be called the Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy. It is proposed that the first holder of the Professorship should be Professor H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia who holds the Professorship of Physical Metallurgy established for his tenure (by Grace 11 of 15 December 1999) and that for subsequent appointments election be made by an ad hoc Board of Electors. Subject to the approval of this Report the University Lectureship, held in abeyance during Professor Bhadeshia's tenure of the personal Professorship, will be suppressed.
4. Tata Steel (UK) Ltd has generously agreed to donate to the University the sum of £2.084m towards the costs of endowing this Professorship. Tata Steel (UK) Ltd is the major steel producer in the UK and part of the world-wide Tata Group. Professor Bhadeshia is a world leader of research on physical metallurgy in general, and on steels in particular. He is noted for his pioneering work on novel bainitic steels and more generally on quantitative modelling of microstructural development in steels; he welcomes the change in title of the Professorship. The Council of the School of the Physical Sciences and the Faculty Board of Physics and Chemistry have formally recommended the establishment of this Professorship.
5. The General Board recommend:
I. That a Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy be established in the University, for Professor H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia in the first instance, from 1 December 2008, placed in Schedule B of the Statutes, and assigned to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy.
II. That regulations for the Tata Steel Fund for Metallurgy, as set out in the Schedule to this Report, be approved.
| 8 October 2008 | ALISON RICHARD, Vice-Chancellor | WILLIAM BROWN | D. W. B. MACDONALD |
| NICK BAMPOS | PHILIP FORD | J. RALLISON | |
| GRAEME BARKER | RICHARD FRIEND | PATRICK SISSONS | |
| TOM BLUNDELL | RICHARD HUNTER | I. H. WHITE |
| Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy. | 2008. | Materials Science and Metallurgy |
1. The sum of two million, eighty-four thousand pounds (£2.084m) received from Tata Steel UK Limited in two annual payments of equal amounts of one million, forty-two thousand pounds (£1.042m) for the endowment of a Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy shall constitute a fund to be called the Tata Steel Fund for Metallurgy.
2. The Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy shall be concerned with the study of ferrous metallurgy.
3. Whenever the Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy is due to fall vacant for any reason, the General Board, following consultation with the Council of the School of the Physical Sciences, the Head of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, and the donor, may recommend to the University that the particular field of the Professorship be concerned with the study of materials science and metallurgy in general.
4. The Managers of the Fund shall be the Head of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, the Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy, and one other Manager appointed by the Faculty Board of Physics and Chemistry for periods of five years, provided that, if two or more of these posts are held by the same person or if one or more of these posts is vacant or its tenure has expired, the Faculty Board of Physics and Chemistry shall appoint one or more additional Managers so as to ensure that there are three Managers.
5. The first charge on the income and expendable capital of the Fund shall be the payment of the stipend, national insurance, pension contributions, and associated indirect costs of the Tata Steel Professorship of Metallurgy payable by the University.
6. After provision has been made in accordance with Regulation 5, the income of the Fund shall be applied for the support of teaching or research into ferrous metallurgy or, if (following a recommendation of the type referred to in Regulation 3) the subject matter of the Professorship has been changed, for the support of teaching or research in materials science and metallurgy generally, in each case in such a manner as shall be approved by the General Board on the recommendation of the Managers.
7. Any unexpended income in a financial year may in any one or more subsequent years be expended in accordance with Regulation 6.