The first investment is a set of Prosperity Partnerships which will receive £31million of government funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This will be matched by a further £36m from partner organisations and £11m from universities’ funds. In total, the investment will be £78m.
The Partnership will see 10 universities leading on 11 projects, ranging from future networks for digital infrastructure to offshore wind. Industry partners include Siemens, BP, Unilever and M Squared Lasers.
Amongst the projects is a collaboration between Rockley Photonics and the University of Southampton’s Silicon Photonics Group. This aims to develop an integrated photonics platform for mass markets.
Dr Andrew Rickman, pictured, Rockley’s CEO and chairman, said: “Research into this area is progressing quickly and, in the very near future, this game-changing, disruptive technology will have a huge impact on the future architecture design of large data centres; improve the power and compute capacity of new consumer devices and provide robust sensing solutions in a variety of industry sectors, such autonomous vehicles and biomedical. All this at dramatically lower cost and with considerably less power requirements.”
Johnson said: “A central part of our Industrial Strategy is boosting the economic impact of our world-class research base by supporting the flow of innovative ideas and techniques from concept to market-place.
“This investment will ensure the work of our universities continues to have positive impact around the world and maintain the UK’s global leadership in science and innovation.”
The second EPSRC investment is £60m to allow 33 universities to advance their Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAA). These are said to provide the institutions with the flexibility to operate schemes that increase the impact of their research.
EPRSC CEO Professor Philip Nelson said: “EPSRC Prosperity Partnerships and IAA investments provide the right conditions in which new technologies and products can be developed more quickly. In turn, this will return social and economic benefits and ensure the UK continues to be one of the best places in the world to research, innovate and grow business.”
IAAs are designed to promote movement between universities, businesses and other organisations. In turn, this supports turning research into commercial propositions and improves engagement with third parties, as well as driving culture change within universities.
