Innovation Culture in the Railway Industry – Decarbonisation, Digitalisation and Decoding the Impact of COVID-19 on Rail Supply Chain

Webinar – 5.30pm to 6.30pm, 24 June 2020

In collaboration with Young Rail Professionals

Innovation has seen unprecedented growth and focus in the railway industry in order to address the needs of decarbonisation and digitalisation. In this talk, Alex Burrows, Managing Director at the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education will deliver an interactive talk on the culture of innovation in the railway industry and how the existing challenges related to decarbonisation and digitalisation are being addressed in the rail industry. In addition, he will shed some light on the Rail Supply Group’s (RSG) Coronavirus taskforce survey, which is being carried out to develop a strategy to deliver the fullest, fastest and best recovery for our rail supply chain in response to COVID-19.

Speaker – Alex Burrows

Alex Burrows is the Managing Director of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE), including the Rail Alliance, which is part of the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham.
BCRRE is the largest specialist railway research, education and innovation centre in Europe with over 170 researchers and staff.  Alex leads the BCRRE Enterprise team and is responsible for all commercial and professional services activities, projects and partnerships.  He is responsible for developing BCRRE’s industry relationships including instigating and leading the recent HydroFLEX project that developed the UK’s first hydrogen train in partnership with Porterbrook.
Alex was previously Marketing and Strategy Director at Alstom and worked on a number of major UK projects across rolling stock, infrastructure and railway systems including HS2, hydrogen trains, electrification and signalling.  He is a member of the Rail Supply Group Council and was one of the authors of the Rail Supply Group Sector Strategy (2016) and the Rail Sector Deal (2018).  He has significant high-level industry experience in strategy, policy, innovation, R&D, and Government Affairs and has held senior roles at Atkins, the Transport Systems Catapult and Centro (the West Midlands Transport Authority).

Best wishes

The Women in Rail Team