Speakers for Mobilis 2011

Co-Director, Centre for Automotive Industry Research, Cardiff University

Paul Nieuwenhuis was born in the Netherlands and studied in Australia, Belgium, Spain and Scotland, where he obtained two degrees from Edinburgh University. A lifelong interest in cars and car making allowed him to get a job with the Motor Industry Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The unit was later privatised, this moved him into the consultancy world, carrying out projects for most of the world’s car and truck makers, while he also acted as a special advisor on state aid in the automotive industry to the European Commission (DGIV) and helped frame the first EU state aid legislation. Since 1990, he has been with the Centre for Automotive Industry Research (CAIR) at Cardiff University. CAIR specialises in the economic and strategic aspects of the world automotive sector, giving it a rare overview of the industry. The centre has attracted contracts from car makers, suppliers and other automotive stakeholders, including governments, world-wide. Here he also developed his special interest in the problems of making personal mobility compatible with the need for sustainability. In 2001 he became a founder member of the ESRC-funded Centre for Business Responsibility, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University. He co-created an innovative course in Motoring Journalism together with the highly regarded Cardiff University Journalism school and is currently setting up – in partnership with colleagues at the Cardiff School of Engineering – the Electric Vehicle Centre of Excellence at Cardiff University.

Dr Nieuwenhuis has co-authored The Green Car Guide (1992), The Automotive Industry and the Environment (2003) and The Death of Motoring?; Car Making and Automobility in the 21st Century (1997), and edited Motor Vehicles in the Environment (1994) and The Business of Sustainable Mobility (2006). He also contributed to the Beaulieu Encyclopaedia of the Automobile (2000). Dr Nieuwenhuis is a member of the Society of Automotive Historians and a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers.

BRASS website: www.brass.cf.ac.uk