Researcher’s international award for outstanding contribution to print industry
Dr Tim Claypole, a researcher in Swansea University’s School of Engineering, has been presented with a prestigious US award recognising his outstanding contribution to the international graphic arts industry.
The Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA) is an international organisation of technologists, scientists and other personnel in the printing and allied industries.
Each year, TAGA’s board of directors singles out a professional with a distinguished career to receive the TAGA Michael H Bruno Award, in appreciation of their dedicated service and contribution to the advancement of graphic arts.
The award recognises Dr Claypole’s major contribution to printing science and his role in establishing the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating (WCPC) at Swansea University as one the world’s top five research centres for printing.
At 53, he is one of the younger recipients and only the fourth person from the UK to receive the award.
Dr Claypole, who collected the award at TAGA’s 60th Annual Technical Conference in San Francisco, said: “It is great privilege to receive this award and it shows the international esteem in which printing research at Swansea is held.
“Over the past 17 years, we have built up our fundamental research programmes and now cover all aspects of printing from traditional graphics and packaging, through to our programmes on printing electronics and biomaterials.”
Dr Claypole founded the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating (WCPC) in 1996, with the support of European Regional Development Funds.
The Centre houses a comprehensive range of printing processes, ink making facilities and full analytical laboratories, as well as the facilities to handle the prints produced by large industrial trials.
Dr Claypole’s main research concerns the study of printing as a manufacturing process, including the printing of flexible electronics, sensors and biomaterials, as well as graphics and packaging.
The quality of the WCPC’s research was recognised in 2004 with the award of an Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Portfolio Partnership, Complex Fluids in Complex Flows. Portfolio Partnerships are only awarded by the EPSRC to internationally leading research groups.
For more information on the work of the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating, visit www.swansea.ac.uk/printing.
