The Consortium of UK University Manufacturing and Engineering (COMEH) is an independent body established in 1978. Its main aim is to promote manufacturing engineering education, training and research. To achieve this, the Consortium maintains a close liaison with government bodies concerned with the training and continuing development of professional engineers, while responding to appropriate consultative and discussion documents and other initiatives. COMEH is represented on the Engineering Professor's Council (EPC) and it organizes and supports national manufacturing engineering education research conferences and symposia. The key event in the COMEH calendar is the annual 'International Conference on Manufacturing Research' (ICMR).
The ICMR is normally held in the early part of September. For many years, it was a UK National Conference that had successfully brought academics and industrialists together to share their knowledge and experiences. The conference has developed as a major international event with a growing number of international delegates participating to exchange their research findings with UK researchers and practitioners. The international relevance of the Conference has been a key feature of the Conference since 2003, attracting numerous delegates from outside of the UK. The Conference Themes reflected the breadth of innovative research in all aspects of manufacturing.
- ICMR 2010 will be at Durham University
- ICMR 2011 will be at Glasgow Caledonian University
Winner of Best Paper Prize at ICMR 2009 (sponsored by COMEH) - 'A Categorical Platform for Engineering Surface Manufacture' - X. Jiang, Y. Xu, University of Huddersfield, UK, P. J. Scott, Taylor Hobson Ltd, Leicester, UK.
Best Student Paper (sponsored by CIRP) - 'Modeling for Plane and Curved Needle Tip Cutting Edge Geometry' - Jason Moore, Carl S. McGill, Albert Shih, Patrick McLaughlin, University of Michigan, USA, Qinhe Zhang, Shandong University, China, Haojun Zheng, Tsinghua University, China.