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" Society can benefit from academic engineering consultancy "

Professor Shah is an experienced consultant, having started during his PhD 20 years ago.  His research in the areas of process systems engineering is ideally suited to consultancy work.

His PhD research involved industrial collaborators, allowing him insight early on into industrial practices and problems. “I see a lot of opportunities to apply my research to solving industrial problems” explains Professor Shah. “Our department has great industrial links and contacts.”

His most recent work has involved advising a major industrial gases company on how it could play a role in a sustainable future economy. His report has focused on providing independent response to questions such as what capabilities it will need to expand, and whether it should move into carbon capture and storage or focus its expertise on producing Hydrogen.

Health and safety is an often overlooked part of optimising processes and contribution to the sustainability of a company. Shah has worked with water companies to improve the health and safety processes around using and storing chlorine, designing a future-proof system that also considered the environmental impacts of chlorine releases.

Working as a consultant doesn’t mean abandoning research and there are often a lot of connections between the two.  “Because of the focus of my work, consultancy and research for me rarely conflict. Consultancy work can lead to future research collaborations, so it’s benefiting rather than taking away from my research.”

Shah relishes the challenges consultancy offers, and considers it a way for engineers to share their expertise for the benefit of society. “Engineers are like medics.” He says “They ought to be engaging in professional practice, contributing to society. Consultancy is a good avenue to achieving that – all Engineers should consider it!”

It’s clear that consultancy’s not just about one-off jobs with companies gaining all the benefits.  It can become a self-sustaining model, with higher-level strategic advice leading to new areas of collaboration between Imperial College and external organisations. A number of large research projects have been started in this way. “It’s a very exciting new model for me personally and for the College” says Professor Shah.