Bristol University’s Faculty of Engineering was chosen to host a VIP visit by representatives from the Foreign Office and the North Korean government to showcase the latest in sustainable technology research at Bristol.

Their visit, part of a week-long tour around the South West and London, was set up by the Foreign Office and Glyn Ford, MEP in order to establish links and engage with influential North Koreans by offering them an insight into UK social, political, economic and environmental systems.

Professor Alan Champneys, along with other members of the Faculty of Engineering, took the visitors on a tour of the Queen’s Building to show them a range of research activities linked to sustainable development and renewable energy devices.

The tour included an overview of the BRITE Futures Institute (BRIstol University's research strengths in Technologies for the Environment), a cross-University initiative dedicated to environmental systems and technologies, including input from Dr Sarah Cornell from the Earth Sciences Department.

This was followed by a tour of the Energy Management Laboratory, led by Professor Phil Mellor. Here the party was shown a demonstration model of the tidal stream device being built by Tidal Generation Ltd, a company based in the University Gate SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre, along with several technologies for generating usable electricity from renewable sources.  

Professor Champneys said: ‘It was interesting to hear the challenges and opportunities facing another country with a similar potential to the UK for exploiting renewable energy.’