Ove Arup (ARUP), UK

Ove Arup & Partners Ltd (Arup) is an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists offering a broad range of professional services. The firm was founded in 1946 and currently there are over 10,000 staff working in over 90 offices worldwide. Geo-hazards and risk management for infrastructure (road, rail, maritime, energy, water) and regional (local and national) master-planning projects is an area of particular strength at Arup. Our current focus is on the quantitative analysis to determine cost-efficient and sustainable risk management strategies.

Competencies and facilities

The Arup geotechnical group has an excellent track record in hosting and training researchers. At present there are 22 PhD and EngD researchers undertaking geotechnical research proposed and managed by Arup. Our expertise ranges from project creation, stakeholder engagement, project management, fieldwork, ground investigation, laboratory testing, and instrumentation, remote sensing, numerical analysis, engineering design and construction supervision, investigation of vulnerability of the built environment and societal impacts and disaster management. Our department has excellent computational facilities and a wide range of engineering software packages (commercial and home developed) are being intensively used in consulting and research, e.g. Oasys Geotechnical and Structural Analysis, DYNA3d, FLAC3d, ABAQUS and PLAXIS. The MUMOLADE fellow will also have the opportunity to engage with a range of geoscientists and engineers from a broad range of disciplines and be involved in the implementation of geohazard and risk management studies for real projects.

Key person

Dr. Matthew FREE is Head of the Arup Geohazard and Risk Management Team. He has over 25 years of research and work experience. He is a former Chairman of the Hong Kong Group of the Geological Society and is current Chairman of the UK Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team. His research expertise is in the fields of seismic and landslide geohazards with particular emphasis on implementation of quantitative methods for risk management.  Dr. Free has considerable experience in project management and in the supervision of young scientists and engineers.