The 56th European Study Group with Industry was held at the University of Bath between 3rd April to 7th April 2006, supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the KTN for Industrial Mathematics.

The Study Group followed the usual format of industrial problem presentations on the first day, followed by intensive work on the problems by participants during the next three days and presentations by the academics on the final day. Reports on each problem are available from the link below. The Bath event handled ten problems, more than any previous Study Group. The participating companies were Airbus (3 problems), Dstl (2 problems), Motorola, Unilever, Norsk Hydro, British Energy and BT. The challenges they posed called for a full range of skills in physical, nonphysical and numerical modelling. There were 80 academic participants drawn from 17 universities in the UK and 12 overseas. Chris Budd, Andrew Hill and their colleagues on the Local Organizing Committee, did a fine job in creating an environment where people could work together to maximum effect. Aside from the strenuous core activity of problem solving, there was still time to squeeze in plenary lectures on topics such as fuel cells (John Stockie), complex systems (Darryl Almond) and traffic modelling (Eddie Wilson). John Stockie also gave an overview of the operation of the Canadian MITACS network.