Professor Sahar Al-Malaika has been an academic at Aston University for over 36 years. She is a Professor of Polymer Science and has been

the head of the Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry subject group since 2010. Most of her professional career has been spent at Aston where she also leads the Polymer Processing and Performance (PPP) Research Unit. Sahar is a leading researcher on antioxidants and the modification, oxidation and stabilisation of polymers, where the lifetime performance of technological and medical products can be controlled and improved dramatically to achieve end-use performance targets. Sahar talks with great enthusiasm about her research work, saying: “I love my work as it gives me great pleasure and satisfaction. It is pleasing to see how basic research can be garnered to yield solutions to real-world problems to the benefit of industry and society at large. I find it both fascinating and rewarding when one is able to make an impact on societal needs, desires and aspirations using our research base as a springboard to meeting current and future challenges.” Sahar has built up a strong, international track record for applying her research to real life problems through her long standing collaborations with industry worldwide. She has worked across a wide variety of sectors including aerospace, medical (hip and knee joint replacement), automotive, defence, agriculture and packaging, with companies ranging from large multinational corporations,

such as Unilever, Boots and Exxon Mobile to local Small and Medium Sized businesses including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) with Colormatrix and Gelpack Excelsior. “What has been fascinating to see about my research is its relevance to a range of applications across many different industries. This has resulted in every project that I have worked on being widely different and, together with the new collaboration it brings with it, makes it as exciting and interesting as ever” states Sahar. Funding for Sahar’s research has come through a variety of routes including direct funding from companies in the USA, Europe and the UK, and through help from the Business Partnership Unit (BPU) and Research Support Office (RSO). “The BPU have been great with helping to set up KTPs, preparing paperwork for funding applications and negotiating Intellectual Property arrangements, whilst the RSO are brilliant at sorting out large European grants that involve large industrial consortia.” One project that Sahar worked on was an EPSRC CASE award with Eurothane Ltd that aimed to create a new, greener form of polyurethane. “Eurothane were a really interesting company to work with as they produce solutions for companies including Nissan, Adidas and Nike with their products ending up in golf shoe spikes, tank tracks, and car aerials.”

Eurothane wanted to develop a compostable or biodegradable Thermoplastic Polyurethane material with the characteristics necessary to withstand both the harsh processing conditions and deliver the in-

service performance demanded by the end-use product. “The project was challenging but enjoyable at the same time. Eurothane chose to work with us as our research unit (the PPP) is one of the few academic centres in the UK that are able to offer expertise and research facilities that attend to the needs of basic and applied polymer research. Therefore these big scientific challenges are exactly the type of projects we are looking to work on so that we can prove our capability and expertise.” Sahar continues: “This project was just the start of an ongoing partnership with Eurothane as we are continuing to help them reduce their environmental impact of the

products, which highlights the success and impact of our unit.” When asked about what the benefits of her collaborations with industry brings to her academic role, Sahar answered: “The benefits are boundless as the application of research to industrial problems, through direct funded collaboration, does not only have an effect on one’s career progression, but also the pleasure derived from seeing basic pioneering work in the field being translated into practical solutions that affect people and their lifestyle”. Sahar adds: “More importantly it enables me to take this experience back to the classroom to share with students as real-life case study examples on how the work we are doing has had tangible benefits to the partnering businesses. This is vital in positioning Aston as a fantastic place to study and enriching the students’ experiences.” Finally we asked Sahar about her ongoing plans for engaging with industry: “I am currently working on a couple of projects with two companies, Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. (USA) and Uponor (Sweden), which I believe will provide me with the same enjoyment and will have a similarly huge impact on both the businesses and on my teaching.”

“These big scientific challenges are exactly the type of projects we are looking to work on so that we can prove our capability and expertise.”

Professor Sahar Al-Malaika

Academic Success Stories

Our Academic Success Stories celebrate the work that Aston’s academic staff have undertaken with industry and explore the personal motivations behind their research to identify why they are so passionate about working with businesses.

Professor Prasanta Dey joined Aston Business School in 2004 as a Senior Lecturer, having worked as a Lecturer at the University of

the West Indies in Barbados for four and half years. Prior to beginning his academic career, he worked in the oil industry for thirteen years having started out as a graduate trainee engineer. Prasanta was promoted to the role of Professor in August 2011, when he won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence. Prasanta explains that his background as a Mechanical engineer has meant his passions lie in working with industry: “At the Indian Oil Corporation (a 500 fortune company in India), I learned a lot about operations and strategy. From an academic perspective, I then tried to understand how theories could be applied to a real-life industrial setting; I find it fascinating how we can contribute to make businesses better.” Prasanta’s expertise lies in supply chain management and project management. “These two subjects cover every aspect of the business; they are holistic. I don’t claim that I am an expert of a specific thing, instead I try to bring my research focus on bringing solutions to a business using the theories of supply chain and project management.” Prasanta has worked on a wide variety of projects with companies in the manufacturing, process and services industries, with companies ranging in size from SMEs to large multinationals. He has demonstrated healthcare quality management in the Queen Elizabeth

hospital, advised Country managers of L’Oréal Paris on organisational transformation ,and guided JCB project managers on improving their project management practices. He has recently worked with companies such as Toyota, Bombardier, Rolls Royce and East Midlands trains on improving their indirect procurement performance enhancement. Prasanta has also worked with numerous organisations across five European countries to promote biomass to energy initiatives, in partnership with Aston’s European Bioenergy Research Institute (EBRI), applying his expertise on life cycle and supply chain analysis to develop efficient plants that turns waste in to bio refinery in the UK, China and US. He adds: “These projects will hopefully lead to strong cases in terms of research output and impact especially as our inter-disciplinary team have already demonstrated two state of the art technologies.” Prasanta’s projects have resulted in several benefits for society. “I am working with several SMEs around the world, and what is particularly pleasing is to bring something to developing countries. For example, in Bangladesh, I’ve worked to create sustainable companies with enhanced environmental performance and Corporate Social Responsibility strategies

in order to help them give something back to society. This project has received huge support from industry associations and the learning from this project will help us to work with other companies to make them sustainable.” Prasanta’s projects have come

about from different funding streams and have been supported by different parts of the University including the Research Support Office and Business Partnership Unit (BPU). “The BPU can make our academics acquainted with what industry needs, make those connections with companies and they helped me to really make sense of how my research would benefit industry, which I found really positive. Academics may not always have time to research this, which is where the BPU can help us.” When we asked what advice he would give to an Aston academic who hasn’t worked with industry before, Prasanta

explains “If I could, I would repeat the whole process again. Some might say that in the time it takes to complete a project, you could produce more academic papers. But the long term impact of a project with industry – that’s phenomenal. Learning in this way is far more reflective and academics really need to know that!” Prasanta firmly believes that working with industry brings many benefits to his role here at Aston, commenting: “As academics we need to do three types of activities; teaching, research and contributing to the community. I’d say that these three are happening through my industry based research. Whatever I do is connected to industry, which I can then feedback in to my teaching to give a state-of-the-art understanding” He adds: “For example if you look in text books in the Business School, you’ll find that they are mostly published in the USA. Therefore we need to increase the amount of local/regional cases as our students are predominantly going to be working in the UK or Europe so we need to increase their knowledge of what is going on locally, especially in SMEs” Looking to the future, Prasanta is confident that he will continue to work on projects with industry, and recognises their positive effects: “I will not be stopping any time soon, this research makes sense to society and that’s my key to success. It works and gives me the enthusiasm to keep going as I can see how I am contributing to their performance, and that makes me feel great about my work.”

“I’ve worked to create sustainable companies with enhanced environmental performance and Corporate Social Responsibility strategies in order to help them give something back to society.”

Professor Prasanta Dey

Business Partnership Unit

Academic Success Stories

Our Academic Success Story series celebrates the work with industry that our academic staff have taken part in; looking at their background and why they are so passionate about working with businesses.

WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOUAston University has a dedicated Business Development team who provide access to Aston’s academic expertise in engineering, business, languages and life/health sciences. Academics can contact the team to find companies to work with on innovative projects. The team can also help organisations attract industrial and commercial research funding and manage projects to help develop their businesses. You can speak to the Business Development Team or arrange a free company visit using the following contact details:

Phone: 0121 204 4242Email: bpu@aston.ac.ukWeb: www.aston.ac.uk/businessFollow us on Twitter: @AstonUniBPU