Pioneer 13

14Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Counci l

Dyson: “Genuinely revolutionary technology begins with research”

Business and academic research – pathways to commercial impact

EPSRC and Innovate UK –

driving economic growth

EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing – the perfect business partner

13

SPECIAL EDITION: FROM LAB BENCH

TO PRODUCT LAUNCH

2

CONTENTS

14

4-11 Inspiration to innovation: How EPSRC can help you navigate across the R&D landscape

12-13 Fast track to success: From pioneering Formula 1 technology to commercial solar cell breakthroughs, UK researchers are making the most of EPSRC’s investment in their enterprise

14-17 Spark to a flame: Innovate UK’s Chief Executive Iain Gray explains the reason behind the blurred lines between early stage research and commercialisation

18-19 The shock of the new: Innovation and Knowledge Centres are helping to revolutionise how the UK conducts its R&D

20-23 The partnership principle: EPSRC’s network of blue-chip Strategic Partners, from Rolls-Royce and Jaguar Land Rover to P&G and Cancer Research UK

24-25 Strategic Partnerships: How projects arising from EPSRC’s Strategic Partnerships are helping keep the UK at the pinnacle of global R&D

26-27 Research is the key: Sir James Dyson on why forging ties with Britain’s brightest researchers is the only way the UK will get ahead in the global technology race

28-31 Shining lights: EPSRC has supported the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Centre for over 20 years – its impact has been staggering

32-37 Movers and makers: From dedicated PhD training to custom-built Centres for Innovative Manufacturing, EPSRC is playing a key role in helping to keep the UK at the forefront of global manufacturing

38 Connecting with EPSRC: Ways you can link up with some of the finest minds of their generation – to help your business grow

39 Big numbers: Find out more about EPSRC

26

Editor: Mark Mallett ([email protected])

Design: Rachael Brown ([email protected])

Contributors: Matthew Ball; Chris Buratta; Lance Cole;

Mark Claydon-Smith; Sir James Dyson CBE; Iain Gray;

John Hand; David Mulligan; Will Stirling; Alison Wall

[email protected]

Contact: 01793 444305/442804

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences.

EPSRC invests around £800 million a year in research and postgraduate training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change.

The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science.

This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone’s health, lifestyle and culture.

EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils which have responsibility in other research areas.

The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.

To provide feedback on this magazine, and to subscribe to print and/or electronic versions of Pioneer, please e-mail [email protected]

Pictures courtesy of thinkstock.com unless otherwise stated.

Printed by RCUK’s in-house service provider

4

PIONEER 13 Autumn 2014

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3

Accelerating impactEPSRC’s Chief Executive, Professor Philip Nelson, explains why working with university-based scientists and engineers can help businesses innovate to achieve global success.

From the invention of the wheel to the first motor car, research and innovation have gone hand in hand. Science and engineering drive innovation, which

feeds back into new research. You rarely find one without the other.

As one of the seven UK Research Councils, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is very much part of this cycle of innovation, and we play a pivotal role at many stages on the journey from lab bench to product launch.

With an annual budget of £800 million, we invest in the physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science and engineering that help shape the modern world – from the smartphones in our pockets to the hybrid and electric cars many of us will soon be driving.

Our remit is to invest in university-based research and PhD training. We do this through grants awarded to the universities themselves, which nurture the academics who work in them. But this is just one side of the coin.

Not only do we provide brilliant academics with the means to make tomorrow’s tools and technologies, we make sure they can both understand and contribute to the bigger picture. Not just inventing the wheel, but working with industry to develop its applications – and helping to keep the UK at the forefront of global R&D.

It’s common sense. The world is getting smaller, and is increasingly interconnected. Humanity, as never before, is facing the same responsibilities and challenges – from helping an ageing population to enjoy healthy and fulfilling lives to tackling global cyber and terrorist threats. We help bring the UK’s leading research expertise in universities together with business, government and the third sector to tackle these challenges.

If we are to win these global battles and make the most of the new opportunities that arise, scientists and engineers need to work side by side with business – using their collective energy to drive and accelerate the development of new technologies, techniques and systems, and inspire new thinking for a new generation.

EPSRC has come a long way from its early roots as a funder of research and training.

We broker connections, build partnerships, identify future research areas, and foster new ways of thinking.

From major partnerships with blue-chip organisations such as Rolls-Royce and GSK (pages 20-23) to dedicated centres where academics work with industry at the same coal face, and towards the same commercial ends (pages 14-19), EPSRC helps to smooth the transfer of knowledge from concept to production.

By the same token, we encourage the researchers we support to become entrepreneurs themselves, or to forge relationships with industry (pages 12-13). We have also opened up our research portfolio in a much more dynamic and interactive way to help business connect with the research base (see back page) – something we see as fundamental to meeting the R&D challenges of the future to ensure the UK flourishes as a prosperous knowledge-driven economy.

If you would like to know more about EPSRC, and how you might work with us, please visit our web site: www.epsrc.ac.uk.

In the meantime, I trust this edition of Pioneer will help whet your appetite.


CONTENTS

Inspiration to innovationSo, you are an engineering or technology company, you know the UK has a world-class science and engineering research base; and your business needs help. How do you get connected?

The good news is that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with an annual research and training budget of around £800 million, can help you find ways to team up with the finest university-based scientists, engineers and facilities to drive your business forward.

EPSRC’s Associate Director, Alison Wall, and its Head of Impact, John Hand, have the lowdown.

All R&D begins with the spark of an idea, fanned into a flame – and some of the brightest and most combustible ideas come from universities.

Without UK university-based research, there would be no MRI scanners, no mobile phones, no internet. But universities aren’t just the cradles of new ideas, they can make vital contributions across the innovation landscape, from concept to product launch – and in more ways than you might imagine.

The organisation at the centre of the innovation landscape, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is uniquely positioned to help business collaborate with key university research.

EPSRC Associate Director, Alison Wall, says: “Our remit is to invest in the research that drives progress – the maths and physics behind the modern world of ultrasound scanners and robotic vehicles; and the chemistry, engineering, computer and materials science that help tackle the global challenges of today, from better artificial joints for an ageing population to technologies to combat antibiotic resistance.

Continued on page 6

4PIONEER 13 Autumn 2014

Inspiration to innovation

Collaborating with businessis a proven way to accelerate

the translation of research from lab-bench to market-place



Alison says: “Innovate UK is a crucial Strategic Partner, and we now have a joint portfolio of more than £250 million. Our relationship helps to foster a mutual flow of ideas through channels such as Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Networks, and it also plays an important role in linking research teams with the Catapult Centres and Catalysts.”

How do I know I’ll be connected to the best research and researchers – and how can my company tap into EPSRC’s network of university and commercial partners?

John Hand, EPSRC’s Head of Impact, says: “We have one overarching criterion – research excellence – which we ensure through a rigorous peer review process. If the research isn’t excellent, we don’t fund it.

“But the end point also matters to us. It matters that EPSRC’s work results in a new policy or a new product that contributes to the economy and society and is in the national interest.

“In addition to the £11 billion EPSRC has invested since its foundation in 1994, a further £1.7 billion has been contributed by research partners from business, the charitable sector and other investors.

“This is a powerful endorsement of our commitment to both research excellence and to strengthening the pathways between fundamental research and its translation into products and services for national and global good.

“To help business connect with universities, we have just launched a powerful web-based search tool called Visualising our Portfolio – VoP for short – to help potential partners find at-a-glance information about EPSRC-funded research projects. The tool allows you to search by a keyword, a person or organisation, and then see the connections between them, enabling business users to pinpoint the research or researcher most relevant to them.

“VoP can help companies connect with the engineers and scientists at the cutting-edge of their fields. But it’s not all one-way traffic, as all EPSRC-funded researchers are required to actively seek ways to derive impact from their research.

“For example, a team at Queen Mary, University of London pioneered an advanced form of bone graft to boost healing. The research led to the formation of ApaTech,

“At any one time EPSRC supports a portfolio of research and training of over £4 billion, and we have an unparalleled range of collaborative partners to help us do this. We also have dedicated staff with a comprehensive understanding of R&D issues and opportunities; and who know how to join the dots between university-based researchers and business.

“Collaborating with business is a proven way to accelerate the translation of research from lab bench to marketplace. By getting involved in the development of research proposals, and through engagement in research projects and postgraduate training, business can forge crucial links between excellent original academic research and its translation into commercial or societal value.

“Unlike, say, Innovate UK (previously the Technology Strategy Board), which can invest directly in a company’s R&D, EPSRC’s investments are channelled via the universities. But that doesn’t mean our investments only apply to the very earliest stages of research. We’re constantly looking at ways to help business and academics work together to accelerate the impact of their collaborations across the R&D spectrum.”

In total EPSRC, and the academics it supports, have around 2,700 active partnerships with business and other research users.

In addition to this wider network, EPSRC has developed a highly successful programme of Strategic Partnerships with industry, the charitable sector and other users and funders of research.

Strategic Partners include global blue-chip organisations such as Rolls-Royce, P&G and Tata Steel; cutting-edge high technology companies like Dyson; charities such as the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK; and funding and knowledge transfer agencies such as Innovate UK.

Strategic Partnerships develop long-term mutual R&D investments in the UK research base, giving EPSRC’s partners access to the knowledge, highly-trained people and high specification facilities needed to enable them to develop new products, processes and technologies.

Some partnerships go beyond co-investing in projects, and include the sharing of policy objectives, which is the case with the Wellcome Trust and Innovate UK, among others.

“The research led to the

formation of a hugely successful company, which

later sold for £200 million.”


Continued from page 4

Continued on page 8

EPSRC was quick to provide crucial support at the start of our research, and has helped to establish the UK

plastic electronics research community as consistently world leading.

Professor Sir Richard Friend, co-founder of Plastic

Logic, whose research led to the creation of the

plastic electronics industry, estimated to be worth

$20 billion by 2020

7


business straight after their PhD, and most will end up working in business and government for their longer-term career.”

We are a manufacturing company, every day faced with real-world challenges. So how can EPSRC help us?

Alison says: “Fundamental academic research helps to provide manufacturers with the new knowledge and inspirational ideas to thrive in a competitive global marketplace, and we have invested extensively in hundreds of manufacturing-related research projects by the mathematicians, chemists, physicists, computer scientists and engineers we support across our portfolio.

“Furthermore, EPSRC is hard-wired to UK manufacturing industry, investing £80 million every year in solutions to challenges directly posed by companies.

“Our current portfolio of 230 manufacturing projects represents an investment of over £350 million at the UK’s leading universities.We have over 600 partners from industry across our manufacturing portfolio, who have contributed a further £136 million, and who feed into initiatives such as EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing (CIMs), which play a vital role in the innovation cycle, and are led by highly experienced professionals, many drawn from industry.

“Some of these Centres focus on manufacturing research into new products, while others investigate production technologies and how they scale up. Often a Centre is co-located with an Innovate UK Catapult Centre, for optimum research returns. Sometimes the Centre’s director is also the academic lead for the Catapult.

“An independent report showed that collaboration with business and other partners fostered through Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres, a predecessor to the CIMs, delivered actual gross impacts of around 16 times the EPSRC investment, so we know the value of initiatives like these.”

How can SMEs benefit from working with EPSRC?

Not every company needs a doctoral researcher. In addition to brokering collaboration on individual projects, or centre-based research, one of EPSRC’s successful ‘products’ is its Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs), which can be particularly useful for universities to engage with SMEs.

a hugely successful orthobiologics company, which later sold for £200 million.

“And at the University of Cambridge, CASTEP, a software tool which uses quantum mechanics to allow designers to predict the properties of materials, has passed the commercial milestone of $30 million in sales.

“Since 2007 over 150 spin-out companies have arisen from EPSRC-supported research; many of which have gone on to employ people from their local area, feeding directly into the regional economy.”

How do I attract the brightest PhD students to work for me?

When business thinks ‘university research’, it might imagine a PhD student cooped up in a dusty old research lab, head buried in books with little contact with the outside world. But this image has changed profoundly in recent years, and EPSRC has developed a suite of doctoral training programmes that are bonding academia with industry as never before.

A prime example is EPSRC’s UK-wide network of Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), within which groups of PhD students work on specific research challenges, such as cybersecurity, renewable energy, robotics and applied photonics. There are now 115 CDTs in 33 universities, training 7,000 postgraduates.

Alison says: “CDTs provide a great route for businesses and universities to work together. Today, there are 1,000 companies – from global megabrands such as P&G and Tata Steel to SMEs and medium-sized businesses – partnering with CDTs.

“Cohort-based training such as this brings people together to look at real-world problems. They don’t just focus on GSK or Rolls-Royce, they will often have 10-20 companies working on problems. They will see commonalities of approach; usually these are multidisciplinary and they will see multiple solutions.

“Around 40 per cent of CDT studentships are collaborative with a company from the very start. Students work with business and other mentors and some may spend most of their time in a company.

“We also help to provide students with the skills that might lead them to become entrepreneurs. This is training for the business environment. Nearly half of all EPSRC-supported students go into

“EPSRC is hard-wired to UK

manufacturing industry, investing £80 million every

year in solutions to challenges directly

posed by companies.”



Continued on page 10

The research team at the University of Sheffield have the in-depth knowledge of the fundamentals that we don’t have, while our chemists have the skills to translate their research into something that can be turned into a practical medical

treatment. It is a powerful formula.

Dr Mark Richardson, Vice President Research and Technology, Smith & Nephew Wound Management



As the students from the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training are primarily based with us it ensures the focus of the work matches the needs of the business and complements the

R&D programme and strategy.

Barrie Holden, Anglian Water


University of Cambridge. The work led to the development of an entirely new industry, plastic electronics, estimated to be worth around £80 billion by 2020.

“To support very early stage research in areas of exciting commercial potential, we developed the concept of Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs), which are now also supported by Innovate UK and BBSRC.

“IKCs bring together expertise in research, entrepreneurship and commercialisation to work in exciting and potentially very important new areas such as plastic electronics and synthetic biology. Working side by side, university-based scientists and engineers combine with colleagues from industry to develop the most promising options and build up the applications collaboratively (see pages 14-19).

“Unlike Innovate UK’s Catapult Centres, which are business-led, IKCs are academic-led and industry-inspired. They’re also based around co-location – where industry and academia work in the same centre, at the same coalface, on the same challenges, and in real time.

“Our aspiration is to have more IKCs on the landscape so we are exploring more technology areas. Some could turn into, or work with, the Catapults.”

Far more than a funding body

Alison says: “EPSRC today is far more than a funding body. We have transformed into a mentor and broker of research, helping to turn inspiration into innovation.

“We work with our partners to understand their needs and challenges. We feed this knowledge into our strategy and decision making, and use it to connect business with academia to ensure that the research and training we fund is fully exploited.

“Increasing the uptake and exploitation of our investments is very important to us. We want the UK to be the best place in the world to do business and for EPSRC to be renowned as much for knowledge transfer and innovation as we are for research discovery. We are also helping guide the way for future research, for the benefit of the UK economy and society. This requires academics to think about what they can do with their research and to pursue pathways to potential impact.

“The links between scientists and engineers with partners at all stages of the innovation chain have never been stronger, and EPSRC is playing a central role in ensuring those relationships continue to flourish.”

“Graphene, which has attracted

billions of dollars of investment, was

‘discovered’ by two EPSRC-supported

researchers trying out really adventurous

thinking in the lab – and led them to the Nobel Prize

in Physics.”

IAAs are flexible funding pots awarded to universities to help bridge the gap between the lab and the marketplace. A key element of an IAA award is the provision of seed funding, where appropriate, to develop EPSRC early-stage research through collaborative research projects with industry and other partners. The funding also supports knowledge exchange activities, such as internships or secondments, and helps research teams plan and run industry-focused events.

John Hand says: “When an SME and university identify an opportunity to work together, taking forward research into use, the university is able to react very quickly with the company and start the work right away, just by drawing on IAA funding that is dedicated to them.

“Universities employ knowledge transfer experts focused on exploiting our research and training portfolio. For example, Imperial College has received £6 million in IAA support in recent years, and even the smallest IAA grant we have awarded is £600,000, so there are substantial sums of money available.”

In the IAAs’ first year to January 2014 there were 457 projects, 152 secondments, 291 new company partners and 38 joint publications. Contribution from business and other partners was £22 million for the £20 million invested by EPSRC.

What about research where the potential benefit is not yet known? How do I find out about this?

Alison says: “EPSRC has an outstanding track record of investing in adventurous, often long-term, research. Take ‘wonder material’ graphene, for example, which in just 10 years has attracted billions of dollars of global investment.

“This revolution was sparked by two EPSRC-supported researchers, who used part of their funding to try out really adventurous thinking in the lab. They went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for their ‘discovery’ of graphene through these Friday evening experiments.”

John Hand says: “EPSRC plays a major role in fostering new R&D, co-investing in emerging technologies which could transform an industry, or spark a new one, even if no one knows how yet.

“Nearly 20 years ago, EPSRC invested in very early stage research by Professor Richard Friend and colleagues at the




Fast track to successFrom pioneering Formula 1 technology to commercial solar cell breakthroughs, UK researchers are making the most of EPSRC’s investment in their enterprise.


Speedy resultsEPSRC-funded theoretical research at the University of Cambridge led to the development of the ‘inerter’, an innovative suspension-system component that boosted the performance of Formula 1 cars.

The better the traction, the faster a car can travel. The inerter helps to control a car’s oscillations, improving mechanical grip and cutting lap times.

The inerter was developed by the McLaren Formula 1 team under an exclusive licensing agreement with the university.

For the next three years, McLaren kept the inerter secret, until it was ‘outed’ in a magazine article.

The inerter was subsequently licensed to Penske Racing Shocks for supply to any Formula 1 team, leading to all top 12 F1 teams installing inerters on their cars.

Solar, so goodOxford Photovoltaics, a company formed to commercialise research by Dr Henry Snaith at the University of Oxford, has pioneered a low-cost, sustainable, transparent solar cell coating that can be used on the glass facades of commercial buildings to convert sunlight into electricity.

Dr Chris Case, the company’s chief technology officer, says: “All the core technology transferred into our company from Oxford University was funded by EPSRC…

“It would have been impossible without EPSRC for a start-up to secure funding for such a ‘blue sky’ concept as ours.”

The company has received support from Innovate UK from the outset, including £250,000 from its Smart programme; in 2013, it secured £4.2 million from investors including the European Commission.

In 2013, Nature magazine named Henry Snaith as one of 10 people who have made the most difference in science during 2013; he was the only UK-based scientist on the list.

Force of natureScientists and mathematicians at the University of Bath worked with the Met Office to improve its forecasting operations for extreme atmospheric events.

The project led to a new method to increase the efficiency and reliability of Met Office operational codes for computing extreme weather events. The method is also used to advise county councils on road gritting procedures.

The research was funded through a £3.4 million EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account, the predecessor to its Impact Acceleration Accounts.

Fast track to success

13

Did you know?

Meal deal Researchers from the University of Glasgow harnessed the germ-killing power of ozone to make packaged food safer and longer-lasting – and help to substantially reduce food waste.

Supported by an EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account, the team developed a device that, when held against the packaging’s surface, generates a plasma that temporarily turns some of the oxygen inside the sealed package into ozone, a very effective germicide. A spin out company, Anacail, is bringing the technology to market.

In the plinkMark Cummins and James Philbin, two students at the University of Oxford, formed a spin out company, PlinkArt, to commercialise a smartphone app they created using technology developed as part of their PhD projects in robotics and search engine technologies.

The app won $100,000 in a competition run by Google, which subsequently acquired PlinkArt and later hired its founders, who relocated to California to work on the Google Goggles project.

Weight watchersWorking with Jaguar Land Rover, researchers at the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Liquid Metal Engineering pioneered recyclable light metals technology that helped Jaguar Land Rover make the transition from steel-intensive to aluminium-intensive vehicle body structures across its product range. The result was substantial weight reduction and increased fuel efficiency, as well as significant environmental benefits.

Sound thinkingA team from Newcastle University used their EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account funding to develop an ultra low-cost pre-natal scanner that uses pulses of high frequency sound to build up a picture of the unborn child on a computer screen. Conventional ultrasound scanners can cost up to £100,000, but the device can be manufactured for as little as £40.

Eye in the sky The University of Bristol used its EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account to support engineers, working with Sellafield Ltd, in the development of a semi-autonomous helicopter drone which can monitor radiation levels after a release of nuclear material. The university is working with the National Nuclear Laboratory in the hope of providing Japan with this technology to help improve its environmental surveillance during the continuing Fukushima clean-up.

Spark to a flameIain Gray, CEO of Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board), the UK’s innovation agency, argues that blurring the lines between early stage research and commercialisation can give the UK a global head start in emerging technologies.

Iain says: “Now seven years old, Innovate UK is firmly established at the heart of the UK’s business innovation landscape. It has a very clear role – to support businesses to

commercialise their innovations. The role of the UK Research Councils (such as EPSRC) is even more established – to support early stage research. Two organisations, with two distinct and well-honed specialisms, doing what they do best, bringing their respective expertise to bear at very different points in the journey from initial research through to commercial exploitation.

In reality, things aren’t so clear-cut. The lines are blurred between cutting-edge, early stage research into day-after-tomorrow technologies, such as graphene, quantum computing, regenerative medicine and synthetic biology, and preparing the ground for their commercialisation.

This blurring of boundaries has not come about by accident, but by design, with Innovate UK and the Research Councils collaborating and jointly funding innovations across the research/commercialisation boundary.

A strategy for emerging technologies

It’s exactly that close collaboration that has helped us to ensure the UK is particularly well-placed to benefit from the commercialisation of these exciting technologies – graphene, synthetic biology, quantum computing and regenerative medicine have the potential to generate billion-pound global industries.

The foresight to invest in these nascent technologies informed the development of our Emerging Technologies and Industries Strategy, which recognises that, despite their potential, the very nature of these burgeoning technologies makes envisioning and developing commercially viable applications – and securing investment – particularly difficult.

The Emerging Technologies and Industries Strategy set out a coherent approach for working with the UK’s research base and with partners from a wide range of industries to help create the core capabilities, facilities and momentum needed to support these


potentially disruptive technologies through to commercially viable applications. An updated version of the strategy will be published this autumn, and will guide our planned £16 million investment in this area this year.

The revised strategy will continue our approach of working closely with the research base; and there will be continued support for demonstrator projects, allowing these new technologies to be tested – often at scale.

In addition, there will be stronger focus on harnessing global opportunities and a renewed commitment to encouraging market ‘pull’. This will support the development of a supply chain, the corralling of the necessary technical expertise and all the other elements needed for these emerging technologies to achieve commercial viability.

Innovation and Knowledge Centres

Proof of the ‘designed’ blurring of boundaries comes in the form of Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs), jointly funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK and with additional funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Launched by EPSRC in 2007, IKCs are centres of excellence focused on accelerating and promoting business exploitation of an emerging research and technology field, and on assembling a ‘critical mass’ around these technologies. Their key feature is a shared space and entrepreneurial environment in which researchers, potential customers and skilled professionals from both academia and business can work side by side to scope applications, business models and routes to market.

IKCs are complementary to Catapult Centres, led by Innovate UK, and comprise a network of physical centres designed to advance innovation in specific fields, enabling business to access the best research and technical expertise, infrastructure and equipment.

While Catapult Centres are business-led, with university engagement, IKCs are business-inspired but based in and led by a university, with business involvement.

Closely aligned with the emerging technology areas of strategic importance to the UK, such as advanced materials,

cybersecurity and synthetic biology, IKCs each act as a nucleating point for an early stage industry, bringing together people with the right technical, business and commercialisation skills in a flexible, highly entrepreneurial environment from which cutting-edge ecosystems can be built.

Innovation and Knowledge Centres have already created strong connections with potential customers, existing industry players and investors and continue to develop compelling market-led strategies for commercial exploitation. Many of the companies in their orbit are already benefiting from sales of new products developed in conjunction with the IKCs.

A race we can all winBreakthrough discoveries in the research base sometimes result in their discoverers riding off into the distance, continuing to investigate and develop their breakthrough in relative isolation. Innovation and Knowledge Centres aim to turn that breakaway into more of a peleton.

By assembling all the participants required to support successful commercialisation of discoveries made by our world-leading research base, IKCs are playing a key role in the development of strong global market opportunities and a robust, UK-based supply chain. In this way, academia and companies throughout the supply chain can all win.”

You can find out more about the work of Innovation and Knowledge Centres on pages 16-19.

15

Lab bench to product launch

Into the lightFor academics with brilliant ideas, with off-the-scale potential, the UK needs business flair to fan the spark into a flame. Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs) were set up to do just that. Conceived by EPSRC in 2007 and now co-funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK, with additional funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs) are university-based centres of excellence set up to accelerate and promote business exploitation of an emerging research and technology field.

Despite commencing just seven years ago, IKCs have established both a global profile and an international reputation.

Operating at an earlier stage than Catapult centres, IKCs are led by an expert entrepreneurial team and offer a shared space and entrepreneurial environment in which researchers, potential customers and professionals from academia and business can work side by side on commercial applications of emerging technologies.

The brief is simple – to ensure great ideas are swiftly translated into industrial

development, into products and into jobs. In turn, the techniques and technologies developed in the IKC are fed back into the research ecosystem.

The seven centres funded to date have developed ground-breaking work in areas such as manufacturing technologies for photonics and electronics; regenerative medical therapies and devices; and secure information technologies.

Successful projects have led to new coatings and surfaces that can be used to turn buildings into power stations; enhanced jet engine efficiency; developed technologies to help the body heal itself, and created systems to combat the threat of cyber attacks and terrorism. A snapshot of some of these projects appears on pages 18-19.

IKCs have also developed successful partnerships with the Innovate UK-funded Catapult Centres – a network of business-led technology innovation centres designed to advance innovation in specific fields

and to enable business to access the best research and technical

expertise, infrastructure and equipment.

INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE CENTRES – KEY FEATURES

• Unite scientists and engineers at the cutting edge of research with innovators in business

• Bring together academia and business to energise the commercialisation of new products and processes, and to inform the research base

• Accelerate and promote business exploitation of an emerging research and technology field in a strategically important area

• Act as a nucleating point for the emergence of a new industry

• Create early stage ‘critical mass’, allowing businesses from different sectors to develop and exploit the technology

• Provide access for companies to scientific, technology, application and market expertise as well as associated laboratory and scale-up facilities

• Speed up full-scale industrial adoption of emerging technologies

• Bring leading-edge research closer to innovators in business

• Speed up adoption of ideas by UK business through vital links to research

• Offer academics further work experience in industry

16

Innovation and Knowledge Centres – a brief guide

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies for Photonics and Electronics, University of Cambridge

Focused on developing and exploiting advanced manufacturing technologies using new macromolecular material systems.

From 2007-12 the centre collaborated with 81 businesses, which led to 84 papers, 23 patent filings and the creation of two spin out companies. In addition 237 students attended entrepreneurship courses through the IKC.

Medical Technologies, University of Leeds

Focuses on technologies across the medical technology spectrum – from implantable devices to regenerative therapies. Emphasis is on technologies with viable routes to commercialisation.

Has leveraged over £90 million in research and innovation funding and led to over £50 million in private sector investment in product development. Successful projects have included a portable heart scanner, new surgical technologies and stem cell development.

Synthetic Biology Innovation and Commercialisation Industrial Translation Engine (SynBICITE), Imperial College London

Aims to accelerate the translation of university and industry-based research in synthetic biology into industrial processes and products; and be an effective vehicle for the support of UK SMEs.

Funded from 2013-18, the centre has already generated over £4.5 million in additional research income.

Secure Information Technologies (CSIT), Queen’s University Belfast

Creates the security infrastructure needed to safeguard the trustworthiness of information stored electronically, at home and in the workplace.

Since launch in 2012, the centre has helped to attract over 100 start-up or foreign direct investment companies to the area, which employ more than 2,000 people. Additional funding from Invest Northern Ireland.

Ultra Precision and Structured Surfaces, Cranfield University

From 2007-13, focused on optics and precision engineering in surfaces technology to produce advances in performance across

technologies such as optoelectronics and displays, solar energy and medical devices, with applications in the automotive, aerospace, defence and space industries.

Led to spin out companies and the UK’s first independent subcontract facilities for the creation of ultra precision and structured surfaces via the OpTIC laboratory spin out.

Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction, University of Cambridge

Focuses on sensor and data technology to enhance manufacturing performance in the fields of construction and infrastructure.

Aims to develop new markets and achieve breakthroughs in performance through emerging best practice and supply chain management. Partners include Crossrail and Skanska, for which it has helped to save millions of pounds (see page 19).

Sustainable Product Engineering Centre for Innovative Functional Industrial Coatings (SPECIFIC), Swansea University

Aims to develop functional coated steel and glass products that transform the roofs and walls of buildings into surfaces that generate, store and release energy leading to buildings as power stations.

The ambition is to generate over one third of the UK’s total target renewable energy by 2020. SPECIFIC has attracted £14 million in business nvestment into the IKC and filed 29 patents. Additional funding from the Welsh Government.

Innovation and Knowledge Centres – fast facts

Collaborating universities: 79

Patent applications: 60

Licensing deals: 12

Products and services to market: 60

Additional research income: £132 million

Business investment: £43 million

Partner businesses: 189

Collaborating businesses: 340

Spin out companies created: 11

Spin in companies created: 9

Jobs created: 801

Academic publications: 2,254

PhD students: 273

MSc students: 213



The shock of the new From big ideas that led to new regenerative medical and dental products to money-saving fibre optic sensors for the construction industry, Innovation and Knowledge Centres are helping revolutionise the way UK plc conducts its R&D.

Filling without drillingResearchers from the Medical Technologies Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) at the University of Leeds are working with Swiss company Credentis AG to further develop a treatment and product that can reverse early-stage tooth decay.

The technology stems from fundamental EPSRC-supported research in the 1990s into peptides and tooth development at the University of Leeds. The product is based on a new generation of bioactive materials which simulate normal tooth enamel development through biomimetic ‘scaffolds’ capable of inducing the mineral deposition required for repair of tooth decay.

Project leader Professor Jennifer Kirkham, who led the development of the new technique, says: “Support from EPSRC over many years has been vital to our progress, and enabled us to develop our fundamental research breakthrough, while further support from EPSRC and Innovate UK for major IKC

funding up to 2014 gave us the opportunity to intensify the drive to application and extend the dental product range.

“This may sound too good to be true, but we are essentially helping acid-damaged teeth to regenerate themselves. It is a totally natural non-surgical repair process and is entirely pain-free, too.”

The award-winning peptide material has since been approved for use by dentists in Europe and Canada, opening up the North American market.

Other exciting potential for the research includes the use of peptides in the repair and regeneration of bone.

Making wavesResearchers at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) IKC at Queen’s University Belfast have launched a spin out company to bring to market an award-winning microwave fence for use in critical installations such as airports, power-plants and country borders.

The company’s wireless microwave barrier provides reliable and safe intrusion detection for outdoor perimeters. When in sequence, the fence’s series of nodes emit an electromagnetic beam, using high frequency waves, which passes from a transmitter to a receiver, creating an invisible but sensitive detection curtain around a secure location.

A key feature of the MicroSense system is its ability to distinguish between real targets and nuisance environmental disturbances.

The high precision sensor technology cuts out the ‘false alarm’ headache common among other systems, providing a highly reliable system which is easy to use and easily maintained even remotely.

The product is being tested in several airports and secure locations around the world, from Northern Ireland to Hong Kong.


In tune Researchers at the Cambridge Innovation and Knowledge Centre (CIKC), which focuses on advanced manufacturing technologies for photonics and electronics, have developed a printed piano keyboard to showcase a new method for printing graphene, through which the one atom-thick ‘wonder material’ could be used to make cheap, printed electronics.

Aided by a CIKC grant, and working with Novalia Limited, the team, led by Doctors Tawfique Hasan, Felice Torrisi and Professor Andrea Ferrari, used a graphene-based ink for its transparent, flexible piano to demonstrate potential graphene-based applications such as heart monitors and other sensors.

Dr Hasan says: “It might eventually be possible to print electronics on to clothing and to make wearable patches to monitor people with health conditions, such as a heart problem.”

The team have started a spin out company, Cambridge Graphene Platform Limited, to commercialise the research. They are now developing customised inks with their industrial partners.

By the end of 2014, the goal is to produce three litres per day for R&D work and standardisation to enable compatibility with commercial print processes, such as flexo, gravure and offset litho.

In early 2014, Innovate UK established the Graphene Special Interest Group, accessible at graphenesig.net, to support the exploitation of the UK industry.

Firm foundationsWith space in city centres at a premium, and when time for construction projects is of the essence, a research team led by Professor Kenichi Soga and Dr Mohammed Elshafie have pioneered a way to test whether the foundations of buildings under demolition or reconstruction can be reused – saving construction companies time and money, and helping reduce environmental impact.

Working with construction group Skanska, the team, from the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction IKC (CSIC), cored into the foundation supports of a London office block under demolition. They then inserted optical fibre-based sensors to measure the strain the foundations could absorb, and then advised on which could be reused.

The new building effectively retains over 50 per cent of the original structural mass – helping the company save £6 million, reduce construction time and decrease carbon emissions by over 1,000 tonnes on installation alone.

Skanska’s chief engineer on the project, Andrew Bell, says: “For us, the CSIC is all about pushing the boundaries of sensor technology. It develops new smart technologies that we can implement commercially. Some are very early prototypes, but this is one we used.

“The CSIC is a very good mixture between academic and commercial research. It not only pushes the boundaries but also delivers workable, commercially viable solutions to real problems quickly.”

Overall, the new 16-storey development (pictured), opposite London’s Gherkin, is 80 per cent more efficient than the building it replaces. The project won the Sustainability Category at the Ground Engineering Awards 2013.

Skanska plans to use the same approach in the future. By reusing foundations, not only will it be able to save time and reduce CO

2 emissions, it estimates typical savings of £2-3 million per project.



The partnership principleBringing products to market quickly is all about combining innovative ideas with effective R&D. This is one of the reasons why global companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Tata Steel and P&G choose to join forces with EPSRC in Strategic Partnerships.

From its first formal collaboration with Glaxo Wellcome (now GSK) in 2000, EPSRC has forged a network of Strategic Partnerships with blue-chip global industries and other ‘research users’, such as charities and government departments.

Around 40 per cent of EPSRC’s research portfolio is collaborative, and the research it invests in is critical in underpinning crucial UK sectors such as pharmaceuticals, construction, energy, aerospace, medical technologies, automotive and defence.

Dr Matt Ball, EPSRC’s Head of User Engagement, says: “A key factor leading to international corporations choosing to place R&D investments in the UK is its world-class research base, giving them access to the knowledge, highly-trained people and high specification facilities needed to enable them to develop new products, processes and technologies.

“When we first came up with the Strategic Partnership concept, we had three main goals:

• To jointly fund UK universities to support research, training and other activities in gap areas of strategic importance to UK economic and social wellbeing

• To provide a key link between the needs of research users, such as industry, and long-term academic research

• To enable clear routes to exploitation.

“What made the concept truly significant was that both partners would commit to sharing information and strategy, and would work together to support each other’s objectives.

“Over 15 years, we have undertaken a wide range of joint endeavours with a large number of strategic partners.

“No two partnerships are the same and, while the concept (based around the award of grants through open competition to universities, not to the partner organisation) is fixed, the scale and nature of activities vary enormously depending on the strategic need.

“For example, some partners are clear about the need for the UK to develop capability in a particular area, and EPSRC has worked quickly to stimulate high quality academic programmes in response. For others, working strategically with the academic research base is new for them and we have worked closely to help frame their long-term research and skills needs in an academic context and helped them to identify research groups and institutions they can partner with.”

Michael Duncan, P&G’s Global Director for Research and Development, says: “P&G and EPSRC have had a strategic relationship since 2006, and throughout this period EPSRC have been an outstanding



21

Strategic Partnerships

of this new Chair. This is a great example of the public and private sector working together to find new ways to protect the environment and conserve natural resources for the future.”

Communication is the key

Matt Ball says: “Strategic Partnerships are about much more than the joint funding of projects – they enable the development of effective communication channels and increased strategic understanding on both sides. This provides a key contribution to EPSRC’s appreciation of the wider context in which our investments sit and ultimately strengthens our ability to deliver a high impact research portfolio.”

GSK’s Director of Academic Liaison, Dr Malcolm Skingle, says: “Working with EPSRC has changed the cultural mind-set within GSK such that our chemists now think about the scientific challenges they are attempting to address.

“Our Strategic Partnership has stimulated areas of research within academia and, conversely, has introduced new ideas to the industrial chemists through two-way exchange of information.”

the diameter of a human hair to a 15 degree Celsius wash helped loosen otherwise hard-to-remove crystallised fat from surfaces – double the amount of fat removed by a particular commercial detergent molecule.

While co-investing in R&D is a vital element of any Strategic Partnership, investing in people and capability can be equally significant, such as in 2012, when EPSRC and GlaxoSmithKline announced they would jointly fund a Chair in Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Nottingham. The appointee will be based at the planned GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry at Nottingham. It is hoped this new investment will help to further strengthen the UK as a leader in life sciences while contributing to environmental stewardship.

Sir Andrew Witty, GSK’s Chief Executive Officer, says: “We recognise that the success of the sustainable chemistry centre will rely on the experts running it. That is why we are delighted to collaborate with EPSRC to jointly contribute to the funding

partner, helping us build closer relationships with academia across the UK. They have co-invested in a range of strategically important areas of science and technology and helped push the boundaries of how P&G can engage with top-class industrially relevant research.”

In recognition of the value of the partnership, in 2011, P&G named EPSRC its International Academic Partner of Choice in recognition of the effective relationship developed over a five-year period and of the impact achieved by working together.

An example of this impact came from a joint research project between P&G scientists and EPSRC-supported teams at Warwick and Aston universities, who came together to investigate environmentally-friendly ‘cold-water cleaning’.

The team found that by adding nano-scale pieces of carbon less than ten-thousandths

When we watched the flying displays by the Red Arrows and the latest civil airliners designed and manufactured by Airbus and Boeing, I realised that aspects of our research were literally flying past in the skies above our heads.

Swansea University’s Professor Martin Bache at the Farnborough Air Show



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Matt Ball says: “Another critical benefit of our partnerships is that they allow us to work together to advocate for continued long-term stable funding for engineering and physical sciences and to demonstrate the crucial role that academic research plays in underpinning economic growth and competitiveness in critical industrial sectors.

“We enjoy a dynamic Strategic Partnership with Dyson Ltd, whose founder, Sir James Dyson, is a passionate advocate for increased government investment in UK engineering research and training. To have such a high-profile and respected partner as an advocate is a powerful vindication of what we do, especially as Dyson understands the importance of, and is committed to, long-term investment in academic/industry research partnerships.”

Another example of long-term commitment is the 2013 joint initiative between EPSRC and Strategic Partner Jaguar Land Rover in a £10 million virtual engineering research programme.

The collaboration brings Jaguar Land Rover teams together with some of the country’s leading academics at four leading universities and is the first phase of a 20-year strategic project that could put the UK at the leading edge of virtual simulation globally.

Matt Ball says: “The benefits business can realise by engaging with us and our portfolio are by no means confined to our strategic partners. All UK companies that invest in research and development can benefit from EPSRC’s strategic role in the UK innovation system, such as through EPSRC Innovative Manufacturing Centres (see pages 32-37), and Innovation and Knowledge Centres (see pages 14-19). Our investments also link to facilities and funding provided by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board), which partners with EPSRC on a wide range of activities (see page 14), such as Catapult Centres, Catalysts and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

“Strategic Partnerships are not limited to forging relationships with industry. For example, in 2008, EPSRC co-invested in two major healthcare initiatives with two new strategic partners, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the Wellcome Trust.

“Since 2008 EPSRC and CRUK have co-invested £116 million in medical imaging research. Joint investments with the Wellcome Trust in new UK Centres of Excellence in Medical Engineering now total £75 million.”

Richard Seabrook, Head of Business Development at the Wellcome Trust, says: “There is a rich pool of researchers more than willing to cooperate in this field.

“We believe a multidisciplinary approach stands a better chance of generating innovation in healthcare.”

By focusing on the future, and committing to long-term mutually beneficial relationships, EPSRC’s Strategic Partnerships enrich the UK innovation landscape. At the other end of the scale, EPSRC-supported academics are forging their own links with business and other collaborators, proving that the partnership principle occurs naturally across our portfolio and with SMEs as well as big corporations. It is estimated that of the 2,700 companies involved, many of these are SMEs.

Matt Ball says: “To get maximum impact from our investments, EPSRC brokers relationships between academia and industry and other users of the research. However, we also encourage academics to forge their own partnerships – something which they are increasingly doing.

“By connecting research with business, EPSRC is helping to ensure real-world challenges are met with real world solutions, thanks to dynamic partnerships between industry and UK academia.”

You can find more examples of Strategic Partnerships in action on pages 24-25.

EPSRC Strategic Partnerships

• Toenableearlysharingofmutualcorporatestrategiesofrelevancetoresearchandtraininginengineeringandthephysicalsciences,withaviewtomaximisingstrategicalignmentwhereappropriate

• ToidentifyopportunitiesforpartnerstoworktogethertomaximisetheimpactfromEPSRCinvestments–forexample,throughgreater

P&G and EPSRC have had a strategic

relationship since 2006, and throughout this period

EPSRC have been an outstanding partner, helping us build closer relationships with academia across the UK. They have co-invested in a range of strategically

important areas of science and technology and helped

push the boundaries of how P&G can engage

with top-class industrially relevant research.

Michael Duncan, Global Director for Research

and Development, P&G

coherencebetweenpublicandindustrialfundingorbyworkingtoco-createresearchchallengeswiththeacademicbaseandcross-companyconsortia

• ToworktogethertostronglyadvocateforsustainedinvestmentinresearchandtraininginengineeringandthephysicalsciencesforthebenefitoftheUKeconomyandsociety

EPSRChasStrategicPartnershipswitharangeofbluechipglobalindustries,includingBAESystems,Rolls-Royce,P&G,JaguarLandRoverandDyson.Thecoreobjectivesoftheselong-termpartnershipsare:



EPSRC Strategic Partnershipsin action From revolutionary ‘flapless’ planes that fly themselves to technologies to clean clothes in cold water, projects arising from EPSRC’s Strategic Partnerships are helping keep the UK at the pinnacle of global R&D.

Cool cleaning

To build low cost, low maintenance, highly robust craft required Cranfield’s engineers to develop a new generation of carbon-fibre composite airframes – featuring a step-change in low-cost manufacturing technology. The resulting airframe yielded a weight saving of around 20 per cent compared to aluminium structures, and at a stroke eliminated the risk of fatigue and corrosion damage.

The project, which took academic research to higher levels of technology readiness and closer to industrial exploitation than usually possible, won the Aerospace category at The Engineer magazine’s annual awards.

BAE Systems’ Richard Williams says: “This is the result of British brains collaborating to produce world-leading technology.”

While Demon will not go into production, its innovations are filtering through to other aviation platforms.

Demon, an unmanned ‘autonomous’ aircraft developed through EPSRC’s Strategic Partnership with BAE Systems, has become the first aircraft in the world to fly without the use of flaps – and into The Guinness Book of World Records.

The advantages of ‘fluidic’ flight over moving flap technology are considerable – lighter and fewer moving parts, lower maintenance, a more stealthy profile and reduced noise.

Headed by EPSRC Strategic Partner BAE Systems and Cranfield University, the research project brought together 10 universities to develop technologies for future unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).

The all-new technology was designed by the universities and built by BAE apprentices.

Demon (pictured above) can fly without conventional elevators or ailerons, relying on air jets installed across the wing to control all in-flight movement, pitch and roll.


Flight of the Demon

An EPSRC-funded project led by research chemists at the University of Warwick, with colleagues from Aston University, has transformed the ability of washing powders to shift dirt in eco-friendly low temperature laundry cycles.

Even with modern biological washing powders, some fats and dirt cannot be removed at the lower temperatures many prefer to use for their weekly wash.

The team found that by adding tiny pieces of carbon less than ten-thousandths the diameter of a human hair to the wash helped loosen crystallised fat from surfaces at eco-friendly low temperatures. This in turn meant that stubborn stains could be removed without having to wash laundry at between 60 and 90 degrees.

The research, part of a collaboration between EPSRC and one of its major Strategic Partners, P&G, is led by Dr Andrew Marsh from Warwick’s Department of Chemistry. The project aims to explore how new forms of carbon might work together with detergents in everyday household products.

Dr Marsh says: “Even at temperatures as low as 15 degrees Celsius, otherwise hard-to-remove fat could be solubilised from a test surface. The physical and chemical insight already gained paves the way for future research to explore how this unique behaviour might be exploited in other ways.”

This award-winning close-up photograph of a single grain of salt just 2mm in diameter was captured by EPSRC-sponsored PhD student, Hollie Rosier, while researching jet engine operations.

Hollie, whose PhD in Structural Metallic Systems for Gas Turbine Applications at Swansea University is jointly funded by EPSRC Strategic Partner, Rolls-Royce, says: “When seawater evaporates it can lead to salt in the atmosphere. When exposed to extremely high temperatures inside a jet engine of up to 1,500 degrees Celcius, the salt can form on key components within the engine, potentially accelerating corrosion.

“Reproducing these conditions in a laboratory helps us gain a greater understanding of the corrosion effect and could lead to a change in the way key components of an engine are designed.”

With the global market for jet engines over the next 20 years predicted to be worth $975 billion, this research into more efficient, longer-lasting jet engines could contribute significantly to both UK economic growth and global carbon reduction targets.

This image was taken during one of Hollie’s experiments and won Swansea University’s annual Research as Art competition.

Worth its salt

Picture perfectEPSRC and Strategic Partner Jaguar Land Rover have joined forces in a £10 million virtual engineering research programme.

The five-year collaboration, involving Jaguar Land Rover teams and some of the country’s finest academics at four premier

universities, is the first phase of a 20-year strategic project that could put the UK at the leading edge of virtual simulation globally.

The project will give Jaguar Land Rover engineers access to world-class simulation tools and processes, providing a more realistic perception of what a computer-generated design might achieve while developing the capability of the virtual simulation industry in the UK.

The research will improve the quality and capabilities of simulation, using sights, sounds and even smells to make virtual simulation more realistic.

The projects form part of a partnership between Jaguar Land Rover and EPSRC, Loughborough University, the University of Leeds, the University of Cambridge and Warwick Manufacturing Group.

Meanwhile, at the University of Warwick…

Research conducted by Sarah Hughes, an EPSRC-supported postgraduate student,

has helped Strategic Partner Jaguar Land Rover save an estimated £500,000 a year.

Sarah spent most of her four-year EPSRC-supported Engineering Doctorate (EngD) based at the company’s Gaydon facility in Warwickshire.

Sarah took the results of surveys carried out by market researchers and used statistical techniques, simulation and dynamic modelling to turn customer requirements into an engineering specification.

The company was then able to advise suppliers – of gearboxes for instance – what was needed depending on factors such as mileage and environment. This led to a reduction in the number of prototype models needed, and hence to annual savings Sarah estimates to be in the region of £500,000.

Sarah says: “The experience of the EngD continues to be massively useful because I learned how to be very self-supporting and guide my own research in the context of real business problems.”



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Sir James Dyson in the lab with the Dyson Airblade tap, a device that combines a high-speed hand dryer with hot and cold water outlets.

Research is the keySir James Dyson CBE knows a thing or two about the importance of investing in cutting-edge science and engineering – he has built a globally-acclaimed business based on it. He explains why we must continue to invest in the UK research base if Britain is to stay at the top of its game.

Sir James writes: ‘Earlier this year Dyson created a new robotics lab at Imperial College London. A £5 million hub for us to co-develop a generation of robots with entirely new vision-based capabilities.

Working with Professor Andrew Davison, the world’s leading expert in real-time 3D robotic mapping, we are developing a pipeline of machines capable of literally seeing and understanding their environments. Intelligent robotic vacuum cleaning is just the start.

In the last three years Dyson has increased fivefold its investment in research programmes with leading British universities and we recently announced plans to double the size of our UK research and development base as part of a £250 million expansion. The EPSRC has been a valued partner every step of the way.

Since signing a Strategic Partnership agreement in 2012, we’ve been working to unlock the world-beating research being

developed in British labs. A new generation of patentable, tangible technologies that can be exported all over the world is in development. Forging ties with Britain’s brightest is the only way we’ll get ahead in the global technology race.

Dyson is now engaged with over 30 of Britain’s best universities, developing technology to feed our 25-year pipeline.This includes new ideas and new materials at Newcastle, Durham, Sheffield and Manchester; and leaps in fluid mechanics through our £1 million Chair at the University of Cambridge. Britain is an exciting place to undertake world-beating research.

The investment that the EPSRC are themselves willing to make is crucial. They recognise the need to support engineers and scientists at all levels. The financial support provided by EPSRC’s Centres for Doctoral Training is essential, which is why Dyson is involved in seven of them.

Genuinely revolutionary technology starts with research, which requires long-term thinking; something engineers are ingrained with. Unfortunately politicians don’t always think on the same time frames. The EPSRC rightly shouts when it needs to. If Britain fails to match the competition then our companies will simply be left behind. The threat is real and it’s one that the EPSRC understands.

Their role in advising on policy and giving business a platform to share their concerns is invaluable. No more so than when raising awareness of the relatively small share of UK government investment as a percentage of GDP that goes toward research.

We need more world-beating patentable technology developed as a result of companies and universities collaborating. Long-term thinking and robust investment will deliver it.

We look forward to continuing to help fund ambitious new research programmes with the EPSRC’s valued support.’

Left: This space-age device is the Dyson 360 Eye, a robot vacuum cleaner which, the company says, has more powerful suction than its competitors and is the first robot vacuum capable of high performance cleaning. The company says it should be better at spotting dirt, too, thanks to a unique camera system.



Shining lightsThe EPSRC-supported Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at

the University of Southampton celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

Acknowledged as a world leader in photonics, optical telecommunication

and high-power lasers, the centre is testament to the value of long-term

investment in blue-skies and application-driven research. Pioneer looks

back on a quarter century of continuous achievement.

The science of photonics allows the world to harness the power of light, and photonics research is driving its applications. Lasers and fibre-optic networks power modern high-speed communications and the internet; laser surgery has revolutionised healthcare; and laser technology is vital to modern manufacturing, generating new industries and new jobs.

Since the Southampton Optoelectronics Research Centre’s foundation in 1989, EPSRC has invested over £20 million in the centre, building on research led by its founding director, Professor Sir David Payne, which began in the 1960s.

In 1987, Professor Payne led the research team which invented the world’s first telecommunications optical amplifier, a key device for internet expansion. This led to an explosive growth in optical fibre deployment worldwide. The invention was the result of blue-skies research 15 years ahead of its time and carried out when there was no commercial market for its findings.

Professor Payne, who has been supported by EPSRC throughout his career, says: “Optical fibres created the high-speed connected world, and their outstanding success has been one of our greatest achievements. Without optical fibres and amplifiers, it’s hard to imagine the internet we know today.”



Thanks to continued funding and support from

EPSRC, the University of Southampton has been a

world leader in photonics research

for 40 years.

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Long-term investment

Professor Sir David Payne, Director of the Optoelectronics Centre

Another key area of research at the ORC is its ground-breaking work in fibre lasers. These lasers challenge currently held views on how to make things, how to repair things, and how to destroy things. They are changing every industry and discipline they encounter, and are emerging as the preferred laser for defence.

The combination of small size, maintenance-free operation, thermal and electrical efficiency, and outstanding beam quality have all contributed to the success of the fibre laser; which is now an established alternative to traditional lasers. In fact, in many processes, the fibre laser is the enabling technology.

Professor David Richardson, Deputy Director at the ORC, says: “Today, fibre lasers are being used world-wide on the manufacturing floor. They are used to cut inch-thick steel, to weld your car during its manufacture, perform delicate eye surgery, or even mark the date on the fruit you buy in the supermarket.”

A cluster of stars

Such is the diversity of successful research projects at the ORC, the centre has spawned a cluster of photonics companies set up in the Southampton area to commercialise the research, generating revenues in excess of £100 million and creating more than 300 jobs.

Among success stories, spin out company SPI Lasers, which develops and manufactures high power fibre lasers for a wide variety of marking and micromachining applications, has created 150 jobs. When floated on the AIM stock market in 2005, the company was valued at £40 million. The company is now owned by German manufacturer TRUMPF.

In 2009, spin out company Fianium won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise following sustained growth of seven per cent, and opened a new facility in the United States. In the same year, spin out company Point Source won its second Queen’s Award for Enterprise, having increased overseas revenue by 86 per cent in three years, selling £33 million of exports.

EPSRC has supported the Optoelectronics Research Centre through a series of long-term funding awards, including, in 2011, a £7.2 million Programme Grant to enable it to develop the Photonics Hyperhighway, aimed at increasing internet speeds 100 times over. Two years later, the team demonstrated ‘speed of light’ fibre.

Focus on the future

Professor Payne says: “Photonics research never stands still. For example. metamaterials are the next generation of photonic materials in waiting. Professor Nikolay Zheludev at the ORC is leading a £6 million EPSRC Programme Grant on nanostructured photonic metamaterials – artificial electromagnetic media with unusual properties and a host of potential applications in areas such as telecommunications, energy, data storage, sensing, security and defence.“Another exciting area is silicon photonics, which uses light (photons) to move huge

amounts of data at very high speeds with extremely low power, and at low cost, and is poised to transform devices, circuits and systems that provide high data transmission. ORC research in this field is led by Professor Graham Reed, who received a £6 million EPSRC Programme Grant in 2014 to take his work further.”

The centre is also playing a pivotal role in developing new low-cost photonics technologies for manufacturing. The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Photonics was set up in 2010 (see page 33), giving its industrial partners access to the highest concentration of photonics

Laser vision: Professor Sir David Payne (pictured), Director of the University of Southampton Optoelectronics Centre, says: “We simply couldn’t do what we do without the freedom we have been given by EPSRC. It has helped us build a prolific group of researchers, working in one of the largest and best-known photonics centres in the world.

“This is a great success in purely academic terms, but we have a duty to ensure our research goes out into the world and is put to use. The breakthrough technologies, spin out companies and business collaborations arising from our research are testament to how we are meeting this commitment.”



Key facts about the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) • Ideas generated at the ORC help

power the global internet, navigate airliners, cut steel, mark iPads, and manufacture life-saving medical devices

• More than one billion internet users now exchange over 2,000 petabytes of data every month. Most of this travels through optical amplifiers invented at the ORC

• The ORC conducts world-leading research in advanced materials – from the strongest, lightest silica nanofibres which could change the future of composites, to ‘five-

dimensional’ mega data storage devices in nanostructured glass with a practically unlimited lifetime

• ORC researchers are pioneering the use of fibre lasers in ground-breaking particle accelerator technologies, with the aim of replacing CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

• Over 700 of the centre’s alumni are in key positions in academia and industry all over the world

• Spin out companies formed to commercialise ORC research have generated revenues in excess of £100 million and created more than 300 jobs

• The centre has licensed over 30 key patents and files 20 patents a year

• Industrial partners include worldwide industrial giants Boeing, Cisco Systems, Sharp and BAE Systems

• 10 companies in the Southampton area owe their origins to the ORC

• ORC researchers publish over 200 journal papers per year

• The ORC is leading initiatives such as the new UK Photonics Portal (www.UKphotonics.org), in conjunction with EPSRC to improve access to capability and foster collaboration

2000: Spin out company Sensa is launched. Today it is the world’s leading provider of fibre-optic temperature sensing solutions, and employs more than 100 people.

2000: Spin out company Southampton Photonics Inc (SPI Lasers) is formed, creating 150 jobs. When floated on the AIM stock market in 2005, the company was valued at £40 million.

2001: Spin out company Fibercore Ltd is named the UK’s most successful manufacturer by Experian. The company has since won four Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.

2007: The ‘flat fibre’, a pioneering optical fibre, is developed and patented by researchers from the ORC’s planar optical materials and silica fibre fabrication groups.

expertise in Europe, as well as over 100 laboratories for characterisation, testing and development. The centre works with companies throughout the supply chain, from photonics components manufacturers to end users.

In addition to its extraordinary research breakthroughs and commercial success, the ORC has produced over 700 doctoral-level alumni holding senior positions in industry and academia worldwide. It has over 30 key patents and regularly collaborates with global industrial corporations such as Boeing, Cisco Systems, Sharp and BAE Systems.

Professor Sir David Payne, who in 2012 was knighted for his services to electronics, says: “Thanks to long-term backing from EPSRC, the University of Southampton has been a world leader in photonics research for

40 years, enabling the ORC to build ‘critical mass’ rare in academia.

“Thus we are able to work seamlessly across the first four stages of the Technology Readiness Level chain, beginning with research at the ORC into the fundamental physics of photonics. We then develop this into devices and trial the devices in a system. “The next stage is to work with the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Photonics to learn how to make these devices faster, cheaper and better. Once this has been achieved, we have the experience and wherewithal to launch a spin out company to commercialise the technology. “EPSRC investment in basic research is now bringing widespread commercial success and keeping the UK at the forefront of innovation.”

2009: Spin out company Fianium wins the Queen’s Award for Enterprise and opens a new facility in the USA.

2009: Spin out company Point Source wins its second Queen’s Award for Enterprise, having increased overseas revenues by 86 per cent in three years, selling £33 million of exports.

2010: The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Photonics is set up (see page 33).

2012: Professor David Payne is knighted for his services to electronics.

2013: The University of Southampton launches the Zepler Institute, the UK’s largest photonics and electronics institute. It has over 350 staff and PhD students and is led by Professor Sir David Payne.

Timeline of recent achievements


Long-term investment

Above: Research in action at the ORC’s Integrated Photonics Cleanroom.


Composite performance: The work of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites (CIMComp), pictured above, prompted Dr Tim Slack, from one of the centre’s partners, Airbus, to comment: “CIMComp is an internationally-leading centre of excellence providing the foundations for a step change in the innovation of our supply chain.”

Movers and makersA network of experts, a pipeline of training, and total collaboration. EPSRC’s

Head of Manufacturing, Dr Mark Claydon-Smith (pictured), explains how

EPSRC’s manufacturing research, particularly through its Centres for

Innovative Manufacturing, is keeping the UK among the front runners in

global manufacturing.What should the UK make, and which technologies should it master to be the best at manufacturing these products?

Britain has, quite rightly, given up trying to make everything and has focused on what it is good at. EPSRC plays a unique role in turning concepts into reality, nurturing the manufacturing technologies and processes developed at the UK’s leading universities and linking them with the manufacturing industries driving the economy.

EPSRC has committed to investing £80 million every year to manufacturing research in the UK – mainly through its Manufacturing the Future initiative. This programme has a current portfolio of 230 projects representing an investment of over £350 million in cutting-edge work at leading UK universities, and through collaboration with over 600 companies, which have contributed a further £136 million.

In total, EPSRC, and the academics it supports, have around 2,700 active partnerships with business and other research users.

Together, the manufacturing researchers supported by EPSRC and the business partners they work with help decide which products and production methodologies the UK should focus on, and work out how to link the UK’s network of people and manufacturing processes.

It’s all about globalisation. There are certain products, technologies and applications that

help keep the UK in the game. In several areas we are world class and ahead of the game. What we’re actually looking at is whole business model change, where manuservices and whole life engineering and their consequences play a crucial role.

There are now 16 EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing (CIMs) spread across the UK, tasked with enabling the commercial development of the key discoveries in university-based manufacturing research.

Many of these Centres’ directors hail from industry, or have a strong industrial background.

Some CIMs are focused on future products such as composites, food and pharma that will be especially important to the UK, and some investigate production technologies and how they scale up, such as additive manufacturing and automation.

EPSRC works very closely with Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board). The CIMs and Innovate UK’s Catapults – technology innovation centres – have a particularly close symbiosis, often overlapping. The Catapults tackle the problems of today, EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing research the solutions of the future.

Between them, the CIMs and Catapults cover more than 20 core fields of science, engineering and business that span the mega-trends facing industry today: additive manufacturing, automation, the digital economy, future cities, continuous pharmaceutical manufacture, food, satellites, industrial sustainability, graphene engineering, sustainable feedstocks and much more.

Each CIM has different and complementary communities of interest, and each helps to draw in the knowledge of the best people in each community. EPSRC’s role, essentially, is to give the best people the best environment and connect it up.

We are fortunate because, for some centres, literally the best people in that field in the world are running a CIM in the UK.

CIMs work at an earlier Technology Readiness Level (TRL), from 1 to 4, while Catapults take that research work, develop and commercialise it though TRLs 4 to 6 and eventually, with industry, to TRL 9. That means proven product in the market.

Core research can take place in the universities, but the commercialisation and

The Catapults tackle the problems of today,

EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing research the solutions of

the future.


Manufacturing the future



We have benefited greatly from collaborating with the EPSRC

Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine.

Accessing first-class materials and drug delivery expertise has

helped transition ideas from early proof of concept

into full development.

Rob Quirk, Director of regenerative medicine and devices company, Locate Therapeutics

35


36

developmental activity can be carried out in the Catapult centres. Often the same companies are involved in both, but working at different scales.

A good example of a CIM working with a Catapult is the relationship between EPSRC’s Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Intelligent Automation, led by Professor Mike Jackson at

Loughborough and Cranfield Universities, and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. TRL philosophies don’t always work for CIMs but in this area they do.

The CIM is able to support exploratory work and looks at two main areas. The first is the ICT interface and developments in IT, and the second is the human factor – bringing the right people together in the EPSRC centre. Mike was brought in as the academic lead for the Manufacturing Technology Catapult to make the most of these synergies.

Another example is the EPSRC CIM in Composites, covering Bristol, Cranfield, Nottingham and Manchester universities,

which is managed alongside the National Composites Centre (NCC), whose CEO, Peter Chivers, also chairs the CIM steering group. This partnership suits the aerospace

and automotive companies involved. They are comfortable at managing their development through a TRL cascade, so they can see clearly the specific roles for the NCC, such as production scale-up, while benefitting from the universities’ capacity to explore ideas in depth.

We used to worry about the brain drain. But a healthy churn is actually good. We try to encourage this on both sides, for people in industry to think about an academic career or academics developing deeper links with companies.

This is where EPSRC’s doctoral training programmes come in, and we now have a very satisfactory suite of options. Many of EPSRC’s 115 Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), for example, are collaborative with industry. These centres, which involve around 7,000 students, with 1,000 specifically engaged in manufacturing research, are so important because often a field of engineering can be short of people at that elite level of understanding, which holds back that field from being developed [for manufacturing] to its potential.

This is a big deal for UK industry, teaching the brightest people the skills, sometimes softer skills, that industry really needs.

Under the CDT umbrella, EPSRC also offers graduate students the opportunity to study for an Engineering Doctorate (EngD). Launched in 1992, the Engineering Doctorate is an alternative to the traditional PhD for students who want a career in industry. A four-year programme combines PhD-level research projects with taught courses; and students spend about 75 per cent of their time working on a specific research problem – often based within a company or a Catapult environment.

In addition to the CDT model, EPSRC offers several other PhD-level training routes. These include Doctoral Training Partnerships, which offer a more flexible training approach by passing the funds to universities to allocate rather than issuing them direct to students; and Industrial CASE awards, which provide funding for PhD studentships where businesses take the lead in arranging projects with an academic partner of their choice. So there are lots of ways for industry to get involved.

To take dedicated sponsorship to the next level, EPSRC’s Manufacturing Industry Fellowships were conceived precisely to help bright people in industry who want to become future academic leaders. Ideally, the best people should work in both

academia and industry over their careers.

In terms of funding, most of the academics we support have other relationships with companies that complement their work with the CIMs – and many are already engaged in commercial work.

The academics we support are expected to disseminate their research to their community through academic papers. The CIMs are no exception, and we expect all researchers working with CIMs to publish their research findings in academic journals, just as they would within academia.

EPSRC takes performance measurement very seriously. We have just had an internal review of most of our CIMs, and we are comfortable that our own portfolios are well on track. We’re now looking at what we do next, which big areas to focus on, and how best to maximise opportunities for UK manufacturing.

The combination of the brightest minds, cutting-edge facilities and industry know-how is irresistible. EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing are helping get the best out of all three.

You can find out more about working with EPSRC, and how we can help your business grow, at: www.epsrc.ac.uk.

EPSRC’s relationship with Innovate UK’s Catapults has led to the EPSRC High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult Fellowships. Fellows will conduct research at one or more of the seven HVM Catapult centres, to inject more top-end academic rigour into these centres.

EPSRC has also introduced Manufacturing Industry Fellowships, devised to build academic research groups grounded in real industry experience. These fellowships specifically help outstanding individuals in industry who are moving into an academic career, in the expectation that their research will have a transformative impact on industry, among other metrics.

There are now 12 fellowships based at 11 universities supported by companies, including BAE Systems, GSK and Qinetiq.

Manufacturing research hubsEPSRC is investing £20 million in two multidisciplinary research hubs that will address major, long-term challenges facing manufacturing industries related to commercialising early stage research. The funding will be available for the hubs to operate over a seven-year period.

EPSRC’s role, essentially, is to give the best people the

best environment and connect it up

Manufacturing Fellowships





“My research team within the

printing group recently evaluated

additive manufacturing research

groups around the world and

identified the Additive Manufacturing

Research Group at the University of

Nottingham as a world leader.”Edward D. Davis, CTO and Senior Strategic Technology Manager, HP Designjet

Precision engineering: A researcher at the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Macromolecular Therapies.

EPSRC has in-depth knowledge of the people and the research taking place within the academic community. We can help you find potential R&D partners – and take your business to the next level.

WHY SHOULD YOUR BUSINESS CONNECT WITH EPSRC?

We work with universities, businesses, charities and a range of government departments and public sector organisations to understand their needs and challenges. We feed this knowledge into our strategy and decision making, and use it to connect business with academia to ensure that the research and training we fund is fully exploited.

Improving the level of interactions between business and the research base as a route to increasing the uptake and exploitation of our investments is very important to us. Equally important is increasing the uptake and exploitation of our investments. Ultimately, we want the UK to be renowned as much for knowledge transfer and innovation as it is for research discovery.

WAYS YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing

These are centres of research excellence working with industry tasked with enabling the commercial development of key discoveries

in university-based research into innovative manufacturing techniques, technologies and processes (see pages 34-37).

Impact Acceleration Accounts

Awarded to universities, IAAs provide funding to support: knowledge exchange activities, such as internships into or out of industry; seed funding to develop EPSRC early stage research outputs through collaborative research projects with industry or other stakeholders; and industry-focused events (see page 8).

Industrial CASE Awards

Provide funding for PhD studentships where businesses take the lead in arranging projects with an academic partner of their choice. The student spends at least three months at the company. In October 2014, we invested a further £17 million in iCASE.

Innovation and Knowledge Centres Centres of excellence which aim to accelerate and promote the business exploitation of emerging research and technology (see pages 24-31). Unlike Innovate UK’s Catapult Centres, which are business-led, Innovation and Knowledge Centres are academic-led

and industry-inspired, and based around co-location, where industry and academia work in the same centre.

Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations

Centres of internationally-acknowledged scientific and technological excellence, generally involving several universities working together with industrial partners.

Manufacturing Fellowships

Give industrial researchers the chance to carry out research or course-development in a UK university, or academic researchers to work in a UK business (see page 36). Projects can be at any stage from fundamental science to industrial innovation.

And don’t forget...

Forty-six per cent of our research portfolio and over 40 per cent of our studentship portfolio is collaborative with users. You can use tools like Visualising our Portfolio and Grants on the Web to find out where the UK’s cutting-edge research is and engage with those groups, or simply contact us to discuss how to best work with the universities in our portfolio.

VISUALISING OUR PORTFOLIOTo help business and other potential partners connect with universities, we have developed a powerful web-based interactive search tool called Visualising our Portfolio – VoP for short – accessed via the home page on the EPSRC web site.

With at-a-glance information about EPSRC-funded research projects, VoP allows you to search by a keyword, a person or organisation, and then see the connections between them, enabling you to pinpoint the research or researcher most relevant to your organisation, and harness their potential.

www.epsrc.ac.ukOnly connect


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£800 millionTotal invested in research and training annually:

£4 billionTotal value of EPSRC’s research portfolio:

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s

main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences.

EPSRC invests around £800 million a year in research and postgraduate

training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change.

The areas covered range from information technology to structural

engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms

the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for

everyone’s health, lifestyle and culture.

EPSRC is committed to excellence and impact, supporting a research base

and skills portfolio that meets key challenges of the 21st century, such as

supporting an ageing population and meeting the need for sustainable energy.

To this end, EPSRC has pioneered ways to stimulate research and encourage

multidisciplinary collaboration.

Research supported by EPSRC is judged by peer review to be of the highest

quality and straddles the boundaries of scientific disciplines – ensuring there is

a balance between discovery-led research and challenge-led research across

its portfolio.

EPSRC works with around 2,700 companies and partner organisations. Forty-

six per cent of supported research is collaborative with industry and other

research users. By ensuring the early engagement between industry and the

research base, the fruits of EPSRC’s investments can be maximised, helping

to keep the UK at the forefront of global research and innovation.

www.epsrc.ac.uk

Follow us on: www.twitter.co.uk/EPSRC

2,700Number of partnerorganisations:


46%Percentage of research portfolio collaborative with business and other partners:

£1.74 billionTotal invested by business and other partners to date:

Visualise our portfolio

See your business future

EPSRC fuels innovation and connects industry with academia to capitalise on world-leading UK research.

• Explore our £4 billion portfolio of UK research and postgraduate training• Connect with university expertise that could drive your business forward• Build your business in collaboration with UK engineers and scientists

See your future atwww.epsrc.ac.uk/vop

EPSRC is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences

Visualising our Portfolio is the interactive tool that lets you:

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