The Wealth of a Nation An Evaluation of Engineering Research in the United Kingdom Preface

THIS REPORT of the second International Review of Engineering comes at a time when there is quickening appreciation of the importance of innovation to economies and societies around the world, for which engineering research is of fundamental importance.

The rationale for such a review is clear; the UK needs to know how it is doing in engineering research and who better to ask than 26 of our most eminent peers in academia and industry from other countries. The findings should have value not only to the research community itself but also to those concerned with the direction of policy in Government, industry and beyond.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Royal Academy of Engineering have been working in close partnership for more than a year in the planning and preparation of this review. This report, the culmination of these activities, is entirely the work of the International Review Panel.

We would like to thank our colleagues on the Steering Group and staff in both our organisations for helping us to set the framework for the review in such a way that the panel was able to do its work so effectively.

To the International Panel itself we are truly grateful – their expertise, breadth of vision, enthusiasm and capacity for sheer hard work impressed all those who came in contact with them. To Professor Tom Everhart, President Emeritus of Caltech and chairman of the International Review Panel, we are hugely indebted; his authority and leadership were vital to both the review and the completion of this report.

Finally, we warmly thank all those in the UK academic research community, together with their collaborators in industry who are so vital to engineering research, for rising to the challenges and opportunities that this review presented. To have your peers from around the world descend upon your research group can be both daunting and exhilarating for those directly affected. It was a delight to see the enthusiasm of the engineering research community, not least at the celebratory event held in Docklands, London, during the review week. There was a sense of pride in the achievements presented at this event and it was clear that there are many exciting opportunities open to the UK.

We hope this report will stimulate further debate around the issues and recommendations highlighted and we genuinely welcome your feedback on any issues raised.

Professor John O’Reilly FREng Lord Broers FRS FREng Chief Executive President EPSRC The Royal Academy of Engineering Chairman of the Steering Group for the International Review Contents

Foreword iii Executive Summary iv

Engineering Contributions to Society 2 Engineering Research Evaluation 5 General Impressions 5 Context of the Panel’s Evaluation 6 Evaluation Results 6 Characteristics of Successful Groups 8

Engineering for Health 9 Sustainable Development 10 Knowledge Transfer 11 Recommendations with Discussion 15 Acknowledgments 19

Appendices 21 I The Steering Group 22 II Panel Membership 23 III Data Provided to the Panel 25 IV UK Engineering Research Groups Visited 27 V Panel Methodology and Activities 29 VI A Celebration of UK Engineering Research and Innovation 30 VII Questionnaire to International Researchers in Engineering 34 VIII Questionnaire to UK University Engineering Department Heads 37 IX Preserving Inventions through Patents 39

The Wealth of a Nation i ii Foreword

A STEERING group1 of distinguished engineers selected an international review panel of twenty-six people from outside the United Kingdom (UK) to evaluate engineering research in the UK2. The panel was requested to:

■ report on the calibre, standing and research potential of engineering in UK universities;

■ discuss the potential impact of university-based research on the UK’s knowledge economy;

■ provide comparisons with international research in engineering;

■ make recommendations on future actions and/or priorities.

One week was allowed for this task. The panel was provided with data3 on funding sources for engineering research, faculty and students, together with the results of questionnaire returns from 124 international researchers and 43 UK engineering department heads. Forty research groups selected by the steering group after nomination by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)4 were visited by subsets of the panel, and a summary of each visit was presented to the entire panel5. An exhibition of engineering research and innovation was held in London so that the panel could see research from universities not visited6. This report is based on our reading of the data, observations during our visits and at the exhibition, plus other relevant information as interpreted through our experience.

The Executive Summary provides key panel observations, conclusions, and recommendations. To set the context, the report describes some of the contributions of engineering and engineering research to society, and how this is changing. Our evaluation, which follows, is based both on our visits and experience and also on the background materials provided. Succeeding sections discuss engineering for health, the increasingly important constraint of sustainable development, as well as how knowledge is transferred from research to application (to provide products, services, and infrastructure that benefit society). The report concludes with a more detailed discussion of the recommendations, based on the material presented above. The appendices provide backup information about the people involved, the panel methodology and activities, more details about how intellectual property is preserved through patents, and summaries of the surveys of international researchers and of UK engineering department heads.

1 The steering group membership is given in Appendix I 2 The panel membership is given in Appendix II 3 The data document is published on the web and the contents are given at Appendix III 4 The research groups visited are given in Appendix IV 5 Details of the panel’s methodology and activities are found in Appendix V 6 Details of the exhibition are found in Appendix VI

The Wealth of a Nation iii Executive summary

ENGINEERING creates goods, services and infrastructure that benefit humankind. In so doing, engineering stimulates meaningful employment, economic growth, and contributes to sustainable national competitiveness. Engineering research advances our ability to improve established fields of engineering and to develop new fields based on recent discoveries in both science and engineering.

We believe that engineering includes traditional fields, such as civil, mechanical, electrical, industrial, and chemical as well as several newer fields, such as materials, computer, optical, medical and biological, and micro and nano structure engineering.

To gain a perspective on engineering research in the UK, we studied data provided, read surveys of colleagues from many countries, and met forty research groups of various sizes in Scotland, England and Wales. These chosen groups came from the best university research departments in engineering in the UK, most being rated 5* and 5 by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). We were very favourably impressed with how the research we observed was advancing the traditional fields of engineering. Research on structures, transportation, urban design, geotechnical, earthquake and environmental engineering, electrical power systems and controls, combustion, and rheology, to name a few, was deemed world-class.

We saw less research that was building on recent discoveries in both science and engineering than we expected. Such discoveries can lead to new fields and pioneering applications. We did visit excellent research groups in applied optics and bio-medical engineering and imaging, examples of more modern engineering applications. We observed less interaction among researchers from one discipline with colleagues in other disciplines, less interaction between research engineers and scientists, and less strategic planning than occurs in some other countries represented on the panel. We found some research that had great impact outside the university, but more that did not, and some researchers who were not well informed or motivated to produce external impact.

iv Executive summary

These general observations, discussed in more detail in our report, and more detailed observations and analysis of what we observed have led to the following recommendations.

Recommendations

1 We observed much excellent engineering research during this evaluation. We recommend that the UK continues to support the excellent engineering research being carried out in universities.

2 We observed relatively little interaction between basic science and engineering. We recommend that academia, industry and government develop strategies to encourage increased linkage of engineering research to more basic mathematical, physical, chemical and biological sciences, so that scientific and engineering discoveries may stimulate even more and broader discoveries and their applications.

3 We observed that engineering research is not well understood or appreciated by industry and the public and we observed relatively little engineering outreach to the public. We recommend that programmes be developed so that creative engineering research in academia is recognised and utilised by industry and the public, both to plan for future directions and to create new and improved products, services and infrastructure more rapidly.

4 We observed relatively few organised activities to attract engineering undergraduates. We recommend that additional programmes be implemented to increase the number of male and especially the number of female engineering undergraduates entering UK universities.

5 We observed less high-quality, longer-term university-industry interaction focused on basic advances and more interaction aimed at a shorter-term payoff. We believe that smooth connectivity between industry and academia facilitates knowledge transfer. We recommend that industry hires more engineers with advanced degrees to provide the UK with a greater competitive advantage.

6 We observed that some new (expensive) fields of research could not be pursued widely in academia. We recommend that cooperative facilities open to all qualified researchers be established in selected promising new fields requiring expensive research equipment.

7 We observed that while some research groups and universities did recognise the value of intellectual property, others did not. We recommend that universities place more emphasis on the development and utilisation of intellectual property that may benefit society.

8 We observed that many programmes emphasised established groups, performing more conservative research, but did not observe many younger researchers doing high-risk, high-pay off research. We recommend more two-tier funding: larger grants for established groups of demonstrated excellence, and smaller grants for younger investigators with creative, but higher risk, projects.

9 We noted the wide-spread perception that engineering, computer and materials researchers are paid proportionally less in the UK than in other industrialised countries. We recommend that this perception be studied, and either the perception or the actuality be corrected to help preserve the economic competitiveness of the UK.

The Wealth of a Nation v The Wealth of a Nation An Evaluation of Engineering Research in the United Kingdom

“Engineering is the creative process of turning knowledge of science and technology into goods, services and infrastructure that benefit humankind.”

1 Engineering Contributions to Society

NATIONS are wealthy when their citizens have enough food to eat, safe homes for shelter, good medical care, and infrastructure for sanitation, mobility and communication.

Advances in engineering, science and medicine have contributed to this wealth, this sense of well-being. Compared to a century ago, we can choose from a greater variety of food, have more comfortable shelter, better sanitation, better roads, better communication and better health care. We now have automobiles, aircraft and airports; telephones, radio and television; computers at work and often at home; advanced medical equipment, prostheses and a variety of pills to reduce pain. None of these advances would have been possible at an affordable cost without engineering and engineering research.

Engineering is the creative process of turning knowledge of science and technology into goods, services and infrastructure that benefit humankind. In so doing, engineering creates meaningful employment, benefits the environment, and contributes to sustainable national competitiveness. Civil engineers design our roads, subways, canals, harbours and airports, as well as modern buildings, potable water supplies, waste disposal and flood-protection systems. Mechanical engineers have amplified the power available to us through engines: from steam engines and internal combustion engines to jet turbines. Electrical engineers design power generation and transmission systems that power our lights, appliances and computers. Electronic and computer engineers have devised rapid communication via telephone, radio, television, cellular phones, personal computers and the internet. Chemical engineers design oil refineries, plants that produce food, drink, drugs and high-performance materials. Industrial engineers improve manufacturing efficiency. Material engineers design new alloys, ceramics, semiconductors and new forms of materials, such as graded optical fibres. Bioengineers design magnetic resonance imaging machines, implants for hip replacements, cardiac pacemakers and stents.

As these examples illustrate, engineering improves our quality of life. Furthermore, from the earliest times, engineering advantage has been a strong determinant of economic advantage. A country’s engineering innovations that produce more rapid communications, more efficient transportation, better access to energy supplies and manufactured goods bring a better quality of life to its citizenry and economic and political influence to the country. Accordingly, the ability to sustain and promote continued engineering innovation becomes a critical national resource. In the past century, the United States and the countries of Western Europe, including the UK, joined more recently by Japan and other nations in Asia, have played a leading role in the generation and implementation of engineering innovation.

Much engineering development derives from focused, application-driven projects that take place in the short term, such as radar, the jet engine and the electronic calculator. However, engineering achievements are also based on new scientific discoveries that researchers realise have great potential to benefit people, and where the ultimate applications may be developed only within the fullness of time, and may have uses that are broader and more diverse than initially conceived. Lasers, weather satellites, electronic clocks and the personal computer come to mind. Thus, a longer-term investment in the skilled people and attendant infrastructure that can nurture both scientific discovery and engineering application is another critical strength and attribute of countries seeking to ensure continued leadership in engineering, technology and economic competitiveness.

The Wealth of a Nation 2 Engineering Contributions to Society

Consider the development of electronics over the past century. Each development enabled new devices and systems as shown below. Creative design made them more desirable, and manufacturing improvements, mass production and competition led to lower prices. Note that the pace of change has accelerated over the past century, bringing benefits to society at an ever faster pace and lower cost.

Vacuum valves: diode invented in 1904, triode in 1906 – enabled radio, television, radar, and early computers to develop.

Transistor: invented in 1946 – enabled smaller radios, more reliable television, more powerful and reliable computers, and many other devices and systems.

Integrated circuits: invented in late 1950’s, under continuous development since – each generation enables more powerful, smaller, cheaper computers, cellular phones, watches, calculators, recorders, and many other devices and systems.

The internet: the widespread availability of computers and communication makes the world-wide-web possible, improving communication of text, data and images (as well as worms and spam).

The ever increasing rate of knowledge accumulation and speed of communication has implications for national competitiveness. In earlier times, the inventions of a nation could be exploited at home to produce new products; products that could be sold abroad as well as at home to enrich the nation. It took many years for any nation to develop the new technologies, develop the requisite processes and efficiently manufacture the products. The nation that did not do this first was at a significant disadvantage. Those who were the leaders in engineering innovation could expect to maintain that leadership for a considerable length of time.

Today, the speed of progress, the quickness of information dissemination, the wide-spread access to knowledge, and the globalisation of education has changed the nature of competition among nations. The knowledge that promotes innovation is developed globally, in universities, research institutions, government, and industry. It is held in the minds of people who create and teach others through conference presentations, classroom instruction, laboratory experimentation and discussions with peers (either in person or through the internet). These knowledgeable, creative people are a vital national resource. Nations that develop supporting infrastructure and context that allow new ideas to be exploited rapidly, regardless of where they originated, are more competitive. People and nations must learn, create, develop and deliver products and services far more rapidly than ever before to hold a lead in important fields.

3 The Wealth of a Nation 4 Engineering Research Evaluation

THE PANEL was provided with data on engineering research funding, personnel and programmes in universities, as well as responses to two questionnaires, one to international researchers and one to UK engineering department heads.

The comprehensive data provided the panel with a great deal of pertinent information. We highlight only a few points here. The data showed that women were greatly under-represented in engineering at all levels, from undergraduate students to professors in universities. Undergraduate inflow to UK engineering departments has been decreasing recently in most fields, aeronautical and electrical engineering being exceptions. The Research Councils (including the EPSRC) are funding more cross-cutting research, primarily in energy, e-science, post-genomics and proteomics. Industrial funding of engineering research increased from 1988/89 to 2002/03 in all fields but civil engineering, with the largest increase in mechanical, aero, and production engineering.

Questionnaire1 responses from 124 international engineering researchers expressed concern that while the UK is still very good in many areas of engineering research, it has been losing ground to other countries for a decade or more. They implied that engineering research support is spread too thinly, that well-established researchers are being funded over younger faculty with fresh ideas, and that there is too little interdisciplinary work within the areas of engineering and between engineering and the sciences. Some pointed out that the UK lags other countries in providing cooperative central facilities with the expensive equipment necessary for new engineering research.

Questionnaire2 responses from 43 engineering department heads expressed concern about faculty salaries and post-graduate student stipends. They also highlighted a desire for more interaction with industry for both faculty and students, and for more interaction across disciplines, among universities, and with researchers from other countries.

General Impressions

The panel formed some general impressions about engineering research in the UK during the week. There seemed to be more conventional research aimed at solving problems which are still important, such as electric power distribution and control, road congestion, structures and lubrication, than might be funded elsewhere; much of this research is first-class, is solving real current problems, and is to be commended. Due to the sustained funding of this research, the UK is taking a leadership position internationally in some of these fields.

However, there seemed to be less creative research and design based on the most recent discoveries in science; knowledge that will lead to entirely new products, processes and services. (Bio-medical engineering and imaging research was an exception.) Put another way, the isolation of engineering from the latest science, and the barriers to cooperation between scientists and engineers, seemed greater than is found in some countries represented on the panel. We realise that these impressions may be a function of the research that was chosen for us to review; they may have more to do with how research is funded by the EPSRC, or how engineering research is defined in the UK, than on the substance of work under way. However, we firmly believe that engineering research, coupled to the latest discoveries in science, can lead to important new knowledge and new, hitherto impossible, products and services that can benefit society.

1 See Appendix VII 2 See Appendix VIII

5 Engineering Research Evaluation

Recent EPSRC international reviews evaluated both Materials and Computer Science. We read these reports with great interest since the panel believes that these two subjects are a part of modern engineering and essential to engineering research. Indeed, much engineering research is based on new or improved materials, and computers are essential in much of engineering, both to analyse and to synthesise, and to be components in new products and systems. In many parts of the world these subjects are integrated into engineering, which facilitates both engineering design and engineering research. In another important new engineering area, two of us were able to discuss the recent report on Nanoscience and Technology with its panel chair, and were impressed with the broad expertise of the committee that wrote the report and the deep insights of the report itself.

Context of the Panel’s Evaluation

The rapidly changing nature of engineering innovation, the critical components that define success in engineering both for the short and long term, the accelerated pace of innovation and information dissemination, and the tightly linked global economy all define the context of our assessment of engineering research in the UK. We visited research groups chosen for us from departments primarily rated 5* and 5 in the Research Assessment Exercise. We evaluated each group in terms of our pooled individual experiences and expertise.

In the necessarily complex, collaborative and interactive landscape that defines effective engineering innovation, we looked not only at research excellence, but also at the mentoring of post-graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, the nature of interactions between university and industry, and the context and support for innovation and commercialisation provided by universities, industry and government policy. We also explored issues raised in the questionnaires. We tried to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each group visited, as well as assess both opportunities for improvement and threats to their continued success.

Evaluation Results

The panel was impressed with the academic quality of the engineering research groups that we visited. Over half of the groups were world-class, and some were judged to be world-leading. Such groups were found in diverse fields: acoustics; applied optics; bio-engineering, imaging and processing; civil (structural, transportation, geotechnical, earthquake, environmental, urban design); electrical (power, controls, systems); mechanical (combustion, particle science and engineering, rheology); micro and nano structure engineering, to give a brief list.

As might be expected, not all groups had great strength in all areas that the panel thought important. Some had great vision and leadership, some were very focused on their mission, and some attracted superlative staff and post-graduate students. Some were excellent at educating and mentoring their students. Some had strong strategic thinking. Some were well funded, had excellent experimental facilities, interacted well both inside and outside the group, and interacted well both inside the university and with appropriate groups outside the university. Some had strong support within their university. Some understood the importance of the intellectual property they were developing and actively pursued patent protection. Several groups had many of the above properties; a very few groups had all.

The panel deliberated on how to present its results in a way that would give a comprehensive picture of its assessment of engineering research in the UK, yet be understandable to a wide range of audiences. It believes that there are two main metrics of engineering research: Quality and Impact. Quality relates to the absolute academic quality of the research, and Impact to its value to industry and the public external to the university.

The Wealth of a Nation 6 Engineering Research Evaluation

To quantify each of these entities, we assigned four indicators, with a semi-quantitative scale for each. Indicators for Quality included: overall group creativity and intellectual merit; recent outputs and outcomes; research strategy and focus; strength, capability, and standing of the group. Indicators for Impact included: influence on industrial practices (new processes, devices, materials, systems, codes, regulations, etc.); commercialisation (patents, intellectual property, spin-off companies, knowledge transfer); influence on infrastructure, transport, energy, environmental policy, standards; and education (number of advanced degree holders to industry, new Master’s level education to meet industrial needs, etc.).

We then assembled the indicators to produce an independent composite ranking of Quality and Impact. Given the highly selected programmes we were asked to assess, we based our Quality metric on the following scale:

■ W-L: World Leader: Probably one of the 3-4 best groups in the world, widely recognised by research peers in the field

■ W-C: World Class: Probably one of the top 15-20 groups in the world

■ UK-C: Group is an important UK contributor

We based our Impact metric on the following scale:

■ WW-I: Worldwide impact and/or impact that makes a major change in economic development

■ UK-I: Nation-wide impact and/or impact that makes significant improvement in economic development

■ LA-I: Local area impact and/or impact that positively influences economic development

This exercise produced the following graph:

Academic Quality vs External Impact

W-L

W-C Academic Quality

UK-C LA-I UK-I WW-I External Impact

7 Engineering Research Evaluation

This graph shows that of the groups we visited, over half are rated world class or higher in terms of quality, but there is variation among even these very high quality groups. There is a correlation between quality and impact: none of the groups below the midpoint on the Quality scale exceed the midpoint on the Impact scale (the bottom right quadrant is devoid of points). This is an observed consequence of the exercise that at first surprised the panel; on reflection, it might have been expected. One should also note that there are many groups with high quality that do not have high impact – it is possible to have high quality without much impact, but it is highly unlikely to have much impact without high quality. In fact, while over half of the groups visited are found in the top half of the chart, fewer than half are found on the right side of the chart. This implies that more attention by research groups to the impact they might have could produce a greater benefit for the UK. We have more to say about interaction with industry in a subsequent section.

Characteristics of Successful Groups

To ascertain why certain groups were deemed so successful, a sub-committee of the panel examined the top four groups in more detail. Their conclusions describe what the committee held in high regard, and are given below.

Characteristics of Highly Regarded Groups

■ Basic technical core competency underlying field of work

■ Excellent people, resources, high quality infrastructure

■ Strong leadership, shared vision, good strategic plan (leading to both academic excellence and good management)

■ Strong interaction with external stakeholders (industry, medicine and government, as appropriate) that influences practice and commercialisation

■ Well attuned to needs of stakeholders and ability to adapt to market changes

■ Strengths in both engineering analysis and creative synthesis

■ Ability to draw excellent postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers from home and abroad, through a fine world-wide reputation

■ Strong, supportive university environment

The Wealth of a Nation 8 Engineering for Health

THE RELATIONSHIP between engineering and healthcare is often not appreciated. We emphasise it here because this interface provides many good examples of modern engineering.

Modern healthcare relies on diagnostic and therapeutic tools such as medical imaging, minimally invasive surgery, implants for joint replacements, cardiac pacemakers, stents and other tissue engineering products, and gene therapy, as well as support for management of chronic degenerative diseases and for the independent living of the ageing population. These advances would not be possible without stellar engineering achievements, such as we found in medical imaging and medical and biological engineering. Research in medicine, biomedicine and biomedical engineering expands the scope of healthcare as innovations enable new and improved means to diagnose and treat health problems and create a more knowledge-intensive healthcare environment. Engineering for health has a double benefit; it provides wealth through commercial products sold on a global market and it creates health through these products being used in health services. Annual product sales of the global health technology and pharmaceutical industry are estimated to be over 700 billion US dollars, and growing.

Biomedical engineering research is an interdisciplinary field which integrates engineering sciences with biomedical sciences and clinical practice, providing the platform for innovations in health technology. It advances fundamental concepts in engineering, biology and medicine, leading to improvement of human health and quality of life. It is rooted in engineering, physics, mathematics, computational sciences, chemistry and the life sciences. It encompasses the discovery and acquisition of knowledge and the understanding of living systems from the molecular to the bone and organ systems levels. This is accomplished through the innovative application of experimental and analytical techniques based on the engineering sciences and the development of new devices, materials, implants, algorithms, processes and systems for the assessment, evaluation, and treatment of disease.

The recent explosive development in the areas of genomics and proteomics has provided a treasure of knowledge that can be used for diagnosis and new modalities of gene-directed pharmacology and gene therapy. New paradigms in information technology are required to present the massive increase in data and knowledge that must be brought to the patient’s bedside. Engineering will play a crucial role in all these developments. Examples of other challenging areas for biomedical engineering research include tissue regeneration technologies, functional and smart materials for implants, targeted therapies combined with diagnostics (e.g. lab on a chip) and functional and bio-molecular imaging.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that biomedical engineering is an attractive field for students, and especially attractive to women. In many educational biomedical engineering programmes in other countries, the female students outnumber the male students.

9 Sustainable Development3 – a new driving force for engineering

IT IS CLEAR today that some of the most challenging tasks for the current society lie in achieving ecological, social and economic developments that are sustainable.

Poverty with an increasing north-south gap, water scarcity and global warming are some of the enormous problems that society is facing. Strategies must be formulated to move global society in the right direction.

The UK government’s ambition to drastically reduce the atmospheric CO2 content, by 60% by 2050, is an example of a very tough but necessary goal set by politicians. This goal can only be reached by a combination of changed human behaviours and technological development. The role of engineering, and specifically engineering research, is thus crucial if this goal is to be reached.

The important role of research and development in engineering is also highlighted in the Environmental Technology Action Plan, ETAP, presented by the EU commission in late February 2004. One of the main objectives of this action plan is to remove obstacles to tap the full potential of technologies for protecting the environment, while contributing to competitiveness and economic growth, in accordance with the Gothenburg and Lisbon declarations. The ETAP report points to the necessity to reinforce research in many engineering sub-areas. For example, it is obvious that an effective and reliable supply of power and energy to homes and to industry is a cornerstone in the development of any country. It is also clear that energy consumption has been increasing during the last few years. Research in the fields of sustainable power generation and power transmission is thus of utmost importance. Better and more effective renewable energy sources, reduced energy losses in buildings, new energy efficient production processes, improved life-cycle assessment procedures, and more effective transportation systems and urban planning instruments are all examples of areas where more research is urgently needed. It should also be pointed out that it is crucial to carry out both research where the results can be implemented on a short timescale, 3-5 years, and research that is relevant on a much longer timescale.

As pointed out in the ETAP report, research advancements in this field are not only a necessity for reducing the environmental stress on the planet, but they will also open up new business opportunities based on the development of new technologies. The UK, we believe, has the potential for taking a lead in this area. It is also evident from the present evaluation of engineering research that there are several areas related to sustainable development where UK researchers are at the forefront. The EPSRC initiative on sustainable power generation and supply, (SUPERGEN) is one such example of a programme with a high potential of generating exciting and novel results.

3 development that meets the needs of the present without compromising those of future generations

The Wealth of a Nation 10 Knowledge Transfer

INTERNATIONALLY, many countries are focusing more and more attention on economic development.

This includes commercialisation of research in terms of patents and start-up companies, but is largely derived from a much broader spectrum of knowledge transfer. For example the movement of people from universities to industry (e.g. the hiring of PhD students by industry) is a critical form of knowledge transfer. It is also important to recognise that, while wealth generation is one critical means of having economic impact, economic impact also derives from minimising costs – obvious examples include potential savings in terms of dealing with ageing infrastructure or the ageing population.

Over the past decade there has been a substantial increase in awareness of the importance of knowledge transfer and there has been a very positive growth in the development of initiatives by UK universities (many of whom have or are developing technology or knowledge transfer offices), national bodies (e.g. the establishment of Faraday Partnerships) and regional government (e.g. The Centres of Industrial Collaboration set up by Yorkshire Forward). All are predicated on an active role and participation by UK industry. However, despite this great progress, there is also considerable variability in attitude, approach, and infrastructure for supporting knowledge transfer. The potential impact of research on the economy can be improved by greater focus on these issues by government, universities and industry. In the following sub-sections we address a number of interdependent issues that deserve consideration.

a) Intellectual Property and University Research

Intellectual property (IP) policy for university research programmes needs to be developed based upon a number of fundamental principles.

1 The main mission of the university is to educate students and conduct research.

2 The generation and dissemination of knowledge occurs best when information is open to all, leading to maximum benefit for society.

3 The tenet of academic freedom of expression and endeavour, as well as openness, needs to be maintained and nurtured.

4 The university has an obligation to create an environment in which the benefits of university research and discovery can become readily available to the public as soon as possible.

5 To motivate those responsible for the development of IP, they should benefit in a fair and appropriate way from the commercialisation of that IP.

The IP policy for university-based research should facilitate and motivate the transfer of knowledge and discovery to the public and maximise the benefits for the UK, while preserving these fundamental principles.

11 Knowledge Transfer

b) Intellectual Property Policies

Government and universities need to establish clear policies and mechanisms to deal with IP. There is an increasing number of universities from around the world now actively generating, identifying and marketing IP. This has come at a time when there has been globalisation, rationalisation and consolidation in many industries that has led to a decrease in IP receptor capacity. There has also been a slowdown in investment in early-stage opportunities as venture capitalists look for much better qualified deals than ever before. As a consequence, universities that want their discoveries to be used will have to place more emphasis on adding value to their intellectual property so that they can overcome the ever-increasing development hurdles being set by potential licensees and investors. This move from only brokering license deals to also managing commercial development will require a new approach by many universities. However, an adequate infrastructure to support this more active approach does not appear to be in place.

Where there is no clear industrial receptor for a technology, the development of start-up companies has become the common mechanism for developing IP. This has never been easy and a significant proportion of start-ups eventually fail. Thus, to derive economic benefit, it is not sufficient to file patents and create spin-off companies; the patents and companies must be successful, both technically and in terms of generating income for themselves and the UK. One major problem contributing to the failures of spin-off companies is inadequate availability of venture capital. There is a need for adequate access to capital that will allow the timely development of those technologies that have significant market potential; to delay is to lose the initiative and often to fail. However, there is also a need for ‘value propositions’ to attract these funds. This means that the IP must be sound and the ownership clear and capable of withstanding reasonable challenge, the business model and plan need to be well developed, there must be qualified management available to develop the IP, and there must be the opportunity to add considerable value with the seed investment. c) University Technology Transfer Offices

Universities that want to transfer their intellectual property (IP) can establish, empower and support an office whose function it is to license, exploit and recommend the defence of IP4. Having a patentable idea is only the beginning of technology transfer. There needs to be a mechanism whereby all IP disclosures can be evaluated for novelty and potential economic value. This requires the availability of individuals with the technical expertise to evaluate the invention, assess the patent needs (which, to be successful, typically means not just developing one patent but rather developing a portfolio of patents by patenting around the core concept to reduce the risk of future challenges), and people with extensive management experience who can assess the potential economic viability, develop the business plan and ensure that there will be the qualified management needed to develop the concept to the point of significant economic benefit.

As a consequence, university technology transfer offices have to place more emphasis on the steps that go beyond identifying a patent. In the absence of obvious external receptors, or in cases where there are obvious external receptors but where the technology is not sufficiently developed to attract their attention, there is a need to build receptor companies and manage them to the point where external management and investment can be developed. Technology transfer offices have to be hot-beds of entrepreneurial activity and they must be proactive in creating and building new ventures where opportunity exists.

4 A discussion of issues related to filing of patents and defending them is given in Appendix IX

The Wealth of a Nation 12 Knowledge Transfer

d) The Role of Capital

Universities should develop a network of angels and venture capitalists to help create and nurture the growth of companies to absorb IP and convert it to commercial products. The availability of capital to support the development of IP is a significant limitation in many countries, including the UK. With appropriate government policies it is, however, possible to develop venture capital funds and networks that allow university technology transfer offices access to these funds. Based on our observations, there appears to be considerable scope for improvement in this area in the UK.

e) Policies to Encourage IP Development

To maximise the potential development of IP, it is important that universities have policies that provide incentives to develop and disclose IP. These should range from ensuring adequate recognition of the development of IP in the consideration of promotion, tenure and annual performance reviews, to ensuring that those responsible for the development of IP benefit in a fair and appropriate way from commercialisation of that IP.

f) IP Education and Review Processes

There is a growing awareness amongst academic staff of the importance of IP. However, there is a need for increasing the education of all involved (academic staff, research associates, students and technicians) to raise awareness of issues related to the development of IP (for example the need for discipline in record keeping that will stand up to scrutiny in patent challenges). It is also useful to have staff who work directly with the developers of IP, both to monitor new developments and help identify potential IP, and to assist in identifying how value can be added to IP.

g) Collaboration with Industry

While commercialisation of research in terms of patents and start-up companies is important, there are arguably even greater benefits that can be obtained from knowledge transfer that involves a range of long-term collaborations with industry. While there is a place for short-term contract research by industry, the greatest economic benefits are derived from long-term relationships where industry and academe jointly develop a vision and long-term strategy for collaboration. This requires understanding and interactions which involve listening on both sides. Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems are two organisations that appear to have developed successful long-term interactions with selected universities.

Technology transfer through the hiring of PhD students by industry represents one of the most effective means of ensuring that industry is aware of the latest developments in the field, is able to keep up with these developments, and can facilitate the translation of scientific discovery into economic benefit.

One of the challenges of establishing university-industry collaborations is identifying the appropriate partnerships. Here there is a role for creating mechanisms for industry sectors to interact with relevant university sectors and for providing a matchmaking service that helps industries identify individuals who can help them with their technological challenges.

13 Knowledge Transfer

h) Education in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

One means of enhancing university-industry collaborations would be to improve the education of engineering students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, with respect to innovation and entrepreneurship. Courses on Entrepreneurship exist at several universities worldwide. One new undergraduate engineering college in the US, Olin College of Engineering, is based on the recognition of the need for such engineers in society. i) Persistence and Patience

Investment in the infrastructure for knowledge transfer is a long-term investment. Building strong partnerships between universities and industries also takes time. There will be successes and failures and it often takes a decade to develop an IP disclosure to the point where there is significant economic return to the inventors and investors. There is a need to encourage self sufficiency of university technology transfer offices, and they should also be given enough time (and funding) to develop fully their potential, subject to review and adequate progress being made. Persistence and patience have been shown to provide considerable benefits for all involved in the commercialisation of IP derived from university research, provided that there is the right combination of vision, expertise and leadership.

The Wealth of a Nation 14 Recommendations with Discussion

1 We observed much excellent engineering research during our visit.

Several of the groups we visited worried about how to increase their efforts, expand their facilities, support more students, or increase their equipment to improve their research output. Some received research funding from several sources, some were heavily dependent on one or two sources. Some believed they were supported well by their university, and others wished for more space or administrative support.

We recommend that the UK continues to support the excellent engineering research being carried out in universities.

2 We observed relatively little interaction between basic science and engineering.

New discoveries in science can provide great opportunities for engineering product development. The invention of the transistor from solid-state physics led to smaller radios, televisions and calculators, and more reliable computers and a variety of other electronic systems. The transistor led to the invention of the integrated circuit, which has transformed electronic systems and computers. The computer itself depended upon combinatorial analysis from mathematics, programme development by software engineers, and hardware developments such as the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit could not have progressed without inventions in optical and electron optical equipment, chemical processing, ion implantation, reactive ion etching, molecular beam epitaxy, and a host of other advances, such as development of ultra-clean rooms.

The cross-fertilisation of ideas from different areas of science, coupled with engineering expertise to make ideas practical, have benefited us in many ways. For example, the phenomenon of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, when coupled with the idea of a spatially varying magnetic field and computer processing has resulted, after considerable engineering, in Magnetic Resonance Imaging equipment that can non-invasively image the internal structures of the human body and provide new diagnostic information to physicians without need of an operation.

In many countries, research engineers publish in scientific journals as well as engineering ones, to keep themselves at the state of the art in both science and engineering. Multi-disciplinary teams are formed to investigate a variety of complicated problems, involving knowledge of mechanics, materials, chemistry, electronics, physics, and more recently, biology, computers and medicine. The panel observed that interaction among different engineering disciplines, not to mention science and engineering, was much less in the UK than in some of the countries we represent. We believe that engineering research in the UK can be strengthened by creating funding incentives to encourage such interaction. Therefore:

We recommend that academia, industry and government develop strategies to encourage increased linkage of engineering research to more basic mathematical, physical, chemical and biological sciences, so that scientific and engineering discoveries may stimulate even more and broader discoveries and their applications.

15 Recommendations with Discussion

3 We observed that engineering research is not well understood and appreciated by industry or the public and we observed relatively little engineering outreach to the public.

We found that some forward looking industries like Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems were supporting academic engineering research and gaining a great deal from it. These companies took a long-term view and benefited from the expertise found in the universities. They understood that universities are not good at short-term development, but rather at long-term investigations of a more fundamental character. We observed some university-industry interactions that focused more on the short-term, which could actually be deleterious to students and faculty. We also observed fewer interactions with existing industry than we expected from our experience in our own countries.

Often, new ideas require new companies that start with a few knowledgeable, passionate individuals to successfully develop these ideas into commercial products, processes or services. This is a fundamentally different way of bringing a product to market than licensing a patent that protects intellectual property to a larger company with greater financial resources. These models are discussed under the Knowledge Transfer section of our report, and in Appendix IX.

We were surprised and disheartened by the response of the researchers we met, who believed they were not appreciated by the British public. This is a problem in many countries, but other countries are attempting to change public attitudes (see for example: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10573.html). Perhaps the Royal Academy of Engineering should take the lead in attempting to change public attitudes and gain more support for the important engineering and engineering research underway in the UK.

We recommend that programmes be developed so that creative engineering research in academia is recognised and utilised by industry and the public, both to plan for future directions and to create new and improved products, services and infrastructure more rapidly.

4 We observed relatively few organised activities to attract engineering undergraduates.

In a knowledge economy, educated people are a very important, perhaps the most important, national resource. Attitudes of students start to be formed at an early age, but there is little formal engineering education before college. Hence, unless teachers of school-age students appreciate both the creative as well as the technical aspects of engineering and understand the many opportunities open to engineers to improve the human condition, students will not be inclined to enter engineering in college. Again, this is a problem in other countries, but not all countries. Some countries, particularly in Asia, hold engineering in high regard and graduate a much greater percentage of engineers than most western societies.

As the role of women changes in society, their participation in engineering endeavours can significantly augment the impact and success of the field and increase the pool of available talent. This considerable segment of society, that in former times might not have considered engineering as a career, should be encouraged to do so. In a very few groups we visited, we noted a reasonable percentage of women, but most groups were heavily or exclusively male. This is both a challenge – and an opportunity. When dynamic younger engineers appear at a school and describe their work in terms appropriate to the audience, both interest and enthusiasm for engineering is developed. When these dynamic younger engineers are women, they are role models for the young women in their audience. In many countries, engineers from academia and industry

The Wealth of a Nation 16 Recommendations with Discussion

are actively appearing in schools before groups of students aged 10 to 18 to describe the attractive careers to be found in engineering. Both industrial and academic engineers can be effective in presenting their enthusiasm and their work to school-age audiences.

The Royal Academy of Engineering’s BEST programme and the Women in Science and Engineering programme have been developed to address this problem. The UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust fund PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to spend time in schools through their ‘Researchers in Residence’ scheme.

We recommend that additional programmes be implemented to increase the number of male and especially the number of female engineering undergraduates entering UK universities.

5 We have observed in our countries that smooth connectivity between industry and academia facilitates knowledge transfer. We also observed that while many of the students studying for advanced degrees in the UK are happy with their education, the opportunities for them in the UK are perceived to be inferior to those in other countries.

We suspect that most industries in the UK hire fewer employees with advanced engineering degrees than their counterparts in other countries. When they do, UK industry may not provide its younger engineers with the opportunities to contribute to the extent that they expect or desire. Industries in many other countries find that employees with advanced degrees not only contribute far more than others, but also provide a conduit for advanced ideas from universities, allowing their companies to be more up-to-date and competitive by knowing the latest discoveries in engineering and science. When integrated over time, this improved connectivity provides their companies with a competitive advantage in a global economy.

We recommend that industry hires more engineers with advanced degrees to provide the UK with a greater competitive advantage.

6 We observed that some new (expensive) fields of research could not be pursued widely in academia.

Just as particle accelerators in physics and large telescopes in astronomy have become too expensive for any one university to construct and possess, the equipment required to pursue research in certain important new fields of engineering is also prohibitively expensive. For example, the UK has recognised that supercomputers can be operated as a shared facility, enabling any legitimate user to carry out important calculations that would not be possible with smaller computers normally associated with a given university.

In some countries, sub-micron and nano-fabrication equipment has been made available to qualified users from any university since about 1980. This has enabled academic (and in some cases industrial) researchers to try out new solutions to old problems, or develop new devices, systems and processes that advance the state of the art. This cooperative approach does work, but seems to be used less in the UK than elsewhere.

We recommend that cooperative facilities open to all qualified researchers be established in selected promising new fields requiring expensive research equipment.

17 Recommendations with Discussion

7 We observed that some research groups and universities did not recognise the value of intellectual property (IP).

While we are not familiar with IP ownership regulations in the UK, in other countries universities patent IP, providing benefit both to the inventors and to the university. In recent years, many universities have established technology transfer offices to facilitate their IP being licensed to firms that want to use it, or in some cases, to take part ownership of start-up firms that want to develop it. There are important issues to consider with respect to IP: motivation of the inventors; education of the faculty and students as to how to successfully disclose the invention(s); evaluation of the invention before deciding to patent; pursuing the patent and successfully marketing the protected IP. These are discussed more fully elsewhere in the report.

We recommend that universities place more emphasis on the development and utilisation of intellectual property that may benefit society.

8 We observed that many programmes emphasised established groups, performing more conservative research, at the expense of younger researchers.

Our panel visited larger, more established groups of engineering researchers. We observed that in these groups younger researchers were nurtured and directed by senior faculty who kept them focused on the group effort. There is benefit in allowing some younger researchers to pursue their high-risk, high payoff ideas in engineering, even when they diverge from a group thrust. Some of their efforts do not succeed, but the ones that do can advance the field in major new directions. Various methods of funding younger researchers for such speculative work have been tried in many countries, including the UK. They include post-doctoral fellowships based on novel proposals and demonstrated promise, and small entrepreneurial research grants funded from agency funds set aside for this matter. We believe that if more such funding were established, the benefit to UK engineering research would be considerable.

We recommend more two-tier funding: larger grants for established groups of demonstrated excellence, and smaller grants for younger investigators with creative, but higher risk, projects.

9 We noted the wide-spread perception that engineering, computer and materials researchers are paid proportionally less in the UK than in other industrialised countries.

This observation has been made in the EPSRC international reviews of Materials, Computer Science and Chemistry, and was raised again by department heads from the leading universities in engineering. The consequences of this perception are that many of the best graduates of these programmes, both native and foreign-born, believe their career opportunities are better outside the UK, and leave. As mentioned earlier in this report, knowledgeable, creative people are the intellectual capital in a knowledge economy. They are the natural resource it is important to conserve.

We recommend that this perception be studied, and either the perception or the actuality be corrected to help preserve the economic competitiveness of the UK.

The Wealth of a Nation 18 Acknowledgements

THE PANEL would like to thank all those who made its work more pleasant, indeed, made its work possible.

The Steering Group greeted it in Scotland at the start of its week of work, and charged it to do its best at a very difficult assignment – to assess the engineering research of a nation in a week. The sub-groups of the panel that visited various different universities were always guided to the correct train (even a plane in a few cases), fed, brought to the right place at the right time, and met research groups that almost always kept to their schedule. We thank the groups who hosted us, explained their research, and answered our questions, both for their expertise and their patience.

The EPSRC personnel were always on hand to help, to guide and to provide what was needed. They did all this with wonderful good humour, rare intelligence, and great problem solving ability when a problem did arise. Indeed, they made our work not only possible, but enjoyable (even on one day when a sub-group left the hotel in Scotland at 7am, visited Southampton, and arrived at the hotel in London about midnight). Of the support that many of us have had for evaluation exercises, this staff was the best. We gratefully acknowledge their help.

19 The Wealth of a Nation 20 Appendices

21 Appendix I

The Steering Group

Professor R F Boucher Vice-Chancellor The University of Sheffield

Lord Broers President Royal Academy of Engineering

Professor C Doyle Director Xeno Medical Limited

Mr A M Haslett Director, Group Technology ICI plc

Dr C H Luebkeman Director, Global Foresight and Innovation Arup

Professor J O’Reilly Chief Executive EPSRC

The Wealth of a Nation 22 Appendix II

Panel Membership

Professor Emeritus Thomas Professor Karl Åström E. Everhart (Chair) Lund University, Sweden California Institute of Technology, USA

Professor Hang Chang Chieh Professor Mogens Henze Professor Evelyn L. Hu Professor Paul C. Jennings National University of Technical University University of California California Institute Singapore, Singapore of Denmark, Denmark at Santa Barbara, USA of Technology, USA

Professor Hubertus Murrenhoff Professor Venkatesh Professor Thomas D. O’Rourke IFAS of RWTH Aachen University, (Venky) Narayanamurti Cornell University, USA Germany Harvard University, USA

Professor Jörg Schlaich Professor William R. Schowalter Professor Motoaki Sugawara Professor Jan-Eric Sundgren University of Stuttgart, Germany University of Illinois at Tokyo Women’s Medical Chalmers Institute of Urbana-Champaign, USA University, Japan Technology, Sweden

23 Appendix II

Dr. Markus Bayegan Professor Edward F. Crawley Professor Forbes Dewey Dr. Billy Fredriksson ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd, Massachusetts Institute Massachusetts Institute SAAB AB, Sweden Switzerland of Technology, USA of Technology, USA

Professor Paul Lagasse Professor Larry Liefer Professor William J. Mitchell University of Ghent, Belgium Stanford University, USA Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Professor Julio M. Ottino Professor R. Kerry Rowe Professor Harry E. Ruda Professor Niilo Saranummi Northwestern University, USA Queens University, Ontario, University of Toronto, Canada Technical Research Centre Canada of Finland VTT, Finland

Professor Matthew Tirrell Professor Tore M. Undeland University of California Norwegian University of Science at Santa Barbara, USA and Technology, Trondheim

The Wealth of a Nation 24 Appendix III

Data Provided to the Panel

This is the contents page of the data document provided to the panel. The full document can be found on the EPSRC website: www.epsrc.ac.uk

1 INTRODUCTION

2 FUNDING SOURCES OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH IN THE UK

3 PEOPLE IN ENGINEERING 3.1 Numbers of university staff 3.2 Age profile of the academic community 3.3 Gender distribution within the engineering community 3.4 Ethnicity profile of the UK academic community 3.5 Undergraduate inflow 3.6 Total undergraduate numbers by engineering discipline 3.7 Graduate academic destinations 3.8 First destinations of UK graduates with engineering degrees 3.9 First destinations by standard occupational classification 3.10 Individual fellowships

4 UK POLICY FOR SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 4.1 Spending Review 2002 4.2 Report of Sir Gareth Roberts’ Review 4.3 The Future of Engineering Research – The Royal Academy of Engineering 4.4 Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration 4.5 Department of Trade and Industry Innovation Report 4.6 DTI 10 Year Strategy Framework

5 FUNDING OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH IN UK UNIVERSITIES 5.1 Funding Council research allocations 5.2 Outline description of the Research Assessment Exercise 5.3 Extracts from the summary reports of the engineering RAE panels 5.4 Funding sources for UK university engineering departments 5.5 EPSRC Engineering Programmes 5.5.1 Research 5.5.2 Trained people 5.5.3 Knowledge transfer 5.5.4 Research grant commitment by programme 5.6 BBSRC Engineering Activities 5.6.1 Bioengineering for Industry and the Environment

6 LEARNED SOCIETIES 6.1 The Royal Academy of Engineering 6.2 The Royal Society 6.3 List of UK Engineering Institutions and Learned Bodies

25 Appendix III

7 INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT 7.1 Bibliometrics 7.2 United Kingdom involvement in European programmes 7.3 EU support for UK engineering research 7.4 Rest of the world support for UK engineering research

8 OTHER INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS 8.1 Executive summary: 1st Engineering International Review 8.2 Executive summary: 1st Materials International Review 8.3 Executive summary: 1st Computer Science International Review

APPENDIX (i) Acronyms (ii) Results of Research Assessment Exercise 2001 by Engineering Unit of Assessment

The Wealth of a Nation 26 Appendix IV

Engineering Research Groups Visited

Professor Anthony Walton Professor John Fisher Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering University of Edinburgh University of Leeds

Dr Robin Wallace Professor Richard Williams Institute for Energy Systems Institute of Particle Science and Engineering University of Edinburgh University of Leeds

Professor Jon Cooper Professor Peter Fleming Bio-electronics and Bioengineering Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre University of Glasgow in Control and Systems Engineering University of Sheffield Professor Alex Duffy Computer Aided Design (CAD) Centre Professor Mark Rainforth University of Strathclyde Institute for MicroStructural and Mechanical Process Engineering Professor Bahman Tohidi University of Sheffield Centre for Gas Hydrate Research Heriot-Watt University Professor Adrian Saul Pennine Water Group Professor Julian Jones University of Sheffield Applied Optics, Photonics, Lasers and Ultra-fast Phenomena Professor Ghassan Aouad Heriot-Watt University Built and Human Environment University of Salford Professor Sandy Nicol Bioengineering Unit Professor Nick Jenkins University of Strathclyde Electrical Energy and Power Systems University of Manchester Professor Gordon Hayward Research Centre for Non Destructive Evaluation Professor Paul Sharratt University of Strathclyde Industrial Processes University of Manchester Professor Jim McDonald Institute for Energy and Environment Professor Saffa Riffat University of Strathclyde Institute of Building Technology and Sustainable Energy Technology Professor Ken Hunt University of Nottingham Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering University of Glasgow Professor Nabil Gindy Knowledge-driven Manufacturing Professor Oliver Carsten University of Nottingham Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds

27 Appendix IV

Professor Christos Christopoulos Professor David Butler Institute for Electromagnetic Research Environmental and Water Resource Engineering University of Nottingham Imperial College London

Professor Phil Nelson Professor Mike Hoare Institute of Sound and Vibration Research Bio-processing University of Southampton University College London

Professor William Powrie Professor Alan Penn Civil and Environmental Engineering Virtual Reality and Architecture University of Southampton University College London

Professor David Payne Professor David Limebeer Optoelectronics Research Centre Process Systems and Control University of Southampton Imperial College London

Professor John Clarkson Professor David Nethercot Cambridge Engineering Design Centre Structural Engineering University of Cambridge Imperial College London

Professor Keith Glover Professor Dave Hawkes Control Group Centre of Medical Image Computing University of Cambridge University College London

Professor Ann Dowling Professor Dave Chadwick Combustion Research Centre Applied Catalysis and Reaction Engineering University of Cambridge Imperial College London

Professor Colin Taylor Professor David Potts Earthquake Engineering Ground Engineering University of Bristol Imperial College London

Professor Cliff Burrows Centre for Power Transmission and Motion (Biomimetics) University of Bath

Professor Rhodri Williams Rheology University of Wales, Swansea

Professor Mike Leschziner Turbulent Flow Modelling and Simulation Imperial College London

The Wealth of a Nation 28 Appendix V

Panel Methodology and Activities

The panel first came together formally with members of the Steering Group on a Sunday morning in Edinburgh. Most members of the panel were strangers to each other, since they came from different engineering fields, from different industries or institutions, and in many cases, from different countries. Members were asked to introduce themselves, give a brief biographical sketch of their experience, and say why they had agreed to take part in the panel. All were enthused about participating in the assessment exercise, felt that they could learn from it, and at the same time be of service to the UK. The panel was briefed on the mission, the programme of activities for the week, and discussed the difficulty of the assignment. In the words of Lord Broers, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and chair of the Steering Group: “You have an impossible task; we hope you will do your best!”

The panel subgroups visited two research activities each in Scotland on Monday, to test the procedure that had been agreed upon on Sunday, and to fine-tune it, if necessary, before visiting more groups later in the week. Each visit lasted about 90 minutes. The first 10 minutes was an overview of the research group presented by its leader. The next 40 minutes was devoted to a tour of facilities and an explanation of the work. Here the panel members were not only able to see what was being done, but talk to researchers who were actually doing the work. The final 40 minutes were devoted to a discussion during which the panel members asked questions and listened carefully to the answers. It was a time of probing, of learning how deeply the group had thought about how its research related to the external world, how it viewed the future, how it recruited its personnel (students, post-docs, and staff), how it interacted with industry, how it protected the Intellectual Property (IP) it developed and how it disseminated its research findings.

One member of the sub-panel was assigned to be the chair of each visit, to lead the discussion and to write a brief report for the sub-panel. We explicitly stated that the sole use of these reports was for the panel in writing its report. A brief oral report of each visit was made to the panel as a whole, so every member of the panel heard a synopsis of every group visited. This process was adopted for sub-panel visits to research groups on Tuesday and Thursday as well. Forty research groups in all were visited.

Wednesday morning was reserved for discussion of what the panel had learned to that point and planning how the report would be presented, and all of Friday was used for planning and writing. Different members of the panel wrote various sections, and the chair was tasked with pulling the various sections together into a coherent whole. On Saturday morning, the panel presented preliminary conclusions to the Steering Group, who asked good questions and helped sharpen the panel’s thinking. However, the report is the panel’s evaluation of the state of engineering research in the UK. Although the Steering Group was asked to review a semi-final draft to ascertain that the report contains no errors of fact, they are not responsible for its content.

29 Appendix VI

A Celebration of UK Engineering Research and Innovation

This unique exhibition was well organised, with very high quality exhibits. Presentation of engineering research in twelve themes integrated the exhibits and made them more communicable and understandable in terms of engineering’s broad impacts on UK society.

One of the immediate benefits of the exhibition was a structured and well-presented picture of UK research that was available to industrial supporters, academics, the press and governmental representatives. This helped to promulgate an image of engineering research as interesting, diversified, and relevant. Talks by representatives of government and industry were important. The exhibition was very helpful to the panel; given the effort it required, having it open longer and more accessible to the public seems advisable. The panel recommends that a future event be located closer to the centre of London, open on day one for industry, university researchers, press, and government representatives that are specifically invited to attend, and open on day two for members of the public, including school groups and teachers. Consideration should be given to inviting representatives of science and technology museums, who might find exhibits worthy of emulation, and resources to make them available to the public on a more permanent basis.

Cross-fertilisation of ideas and concepts among the exhibitors was another benefit of the exhibition. The panel observed several instances where researchers of one discipline were stimulated by researchers in another discipline, information was traded, and intellectual networking initiated. Hence, the exhibit served as a means of communicating ideas, information and products among the industrial and academic participants.

Contributing Organisations, listed by theme

Underpinning Technologies Manufacturing & Design University of Bristol Arup Research & Development EPSRC Brunel University ESRF (The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) University of Cambridge FLUENT Europe Ltd Cardiff University Guided Ultrasonics Ltd EPSRC ILL (Institut Laue-Langevin) Loughborough University Imperial College London Martin-Baker Aircraft Ltd University of Leeds MG Rover Group University of Manchester University of Nottingham Onyx Ltd Rolls-Royce University of Salford SEA Ltd University of Sheffield University of Southampton University of the West of England

The Wealth of a Nation 30 Appendix VI

Mechanisms & Materials University of Southampton Auetix Ltd University College London Bolton Institute Universities’ Transport Study Group Cardiff University UK Universities’ Internal Combustion Engine Group University of Cambridge University of Warwick EPSRC University of York University of Exeter Hurel-Hispano Environmental Engineering ICI Strategic Technology Group University of Bristol University of Leeds Cardiff University University of Malta Defra (Department for Environment, QinetiQ Food and Rural Affairs) Rolls-Royce Environment Agency SEOS Displays Ltd EPSRC University of Sheffield University of Exeter FLUENT Europe Ltd Aerospace & Defence Halcrow Group Ltd BAE Systems Heriot-Watt University University of Birmingham HR Wallingford Bombardier Aerospace Shorts Imperial College London Cranfield Aerospace MWH UK Ltd Cranfield University NIREX Ltd EADS Astrium University of Nottingham EPSRC University of Sheffield University of Nottingham University of Southampton Queen’s University of Belfast Yorkshire Water Rolls-Royce The Royal Military College of Science Built Environment SciSys Amphora NDT Ltd Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd ANP Fire University of Surrey Arup University of Wales (Aberystwyth) Athens University University of Bath Transport Birkbeck College, London University of Bath British Geotechnical Association University of Birmingham University of Bristol EPSRC Building Research Establishment Imperial College London University of Cambridge University of Leeds Castle Cement Ltd Loughborough University City University Manchester Metropolitan University The Cob Block Company Napier University Consarc Conservation University of Newcastle upon Tyne CORUS Oxford Lasers Ltd University of Dundee Rail Research UK University of Edinburgh University of Sheffield Ellis & Moore Consulting EPSRC

31 Appendix VI

FEDRA QinetiQ Hanson Brick Rolls-Royce Heriot-Watt University Rothamstead Research The Housing Corporation Rural Generation Hydraulic Lias Limes Ltd RWE Innogy PLC Imperial College London University of Sheffield University of Leeds Siemens – Demag Delaval Limetec Industrial Turbomachinery Ltd University of Manchester University of Southampton Medece Architects Toshiba International (Europe) Ltd London Metropolitan University University of Ulster North-West Institute of Further & Higher Education University of Nottingham Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals Oxford Brookes University & Process Technologies Queen’s University of Belfast BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Rodney Melville & Partners Research Council) The Royal Institute of British Architects University of Birmingham Salford City Council BOCM Pauls Ltd University of Salford Borax Europe Ltd University of Sheffield University of Bristol Solartron Analytical British Pig Executive Space Syntax Ltd Cadbury Schweppes plc Taylor Young Associates Clairet Scientific Ltd Terca Wienerberger Limited Defra (Department for Environment, Ty-Mawr Lime Ltd Food and Rural Affairs) University College London University of Edinburgh Emerson Process Management Energy EPSRC ALSTOM Power Technology Centre University of Glasgow Aston University GlaxoSmithKline plc University of Bath University of Greenwich University of Bristol HGCA (Home-Grown Cereals Authority) British Nuclear Fuels PLC LINK Collaborative Research Chromalloy UK Meat and Livestock Commission Cranfield University Morgan Advanced Ceramics Ltd EPSRC University of Newcastle upon Tyne Exus Energy Osborne (Europe) Ltd Heriot-Watt University PIC UK Howmet Ltd Silsoe Research Institute Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research Strathclyde University University of Leeds University of Surrey Loughborough University Tate and Lyle Europe Ltd University of Manchester Unilever Mitsui Babcock Energy Ltd United Biscuits National Physical Laboratory University of Nottingham Powergen PLC

The Wealth of a Nation 32 Appendix VI

Electronics Systems Healthcare AWE plc BITE CIC University of Birmingham University of Cambridge Celestica Cardiff University Cranfield University EPSRC DEK Printing Machines Ltd Finetech Medical Ltd University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow Electronic Technology Services Imperial College London EPSRC The Helen Hamlyn Research Centre University of Greenwich King’s College London Heriot-Watt University University of Leeds HP Labs Bristol University of Manchester Imperial College London Medical Devices Faraday Partnership Insensys Ltd Medlink Yorkshire & Humber IRISYS Plc NHS Innovations Kinemetrics Incorporated (USA) University of Nottingham University of Leeds University of Oxford Merlin Circuit Technology Ltd Royal College of Art MicroEmissive Displays University of Sheffield MicroStencil Ltd University College London Microsaic Systems Ltd University of York Mobile VCE National Physics Laboratory Knowledge Transfer University of Paisley University of Bradford Queen’s University of Belfast BT Exact Servocell Ltd The Centres of Industrial Collaboration, University of Southampton Yorkshire Forward Strathclyde University Centre for Scientific Enterprise University of Surrey EPSRC University of Leeds Northern Aerospace Technology Exploitation Centre Sheffield Hallam University Shell University College London University of York

33 Appendix VII

Questionnaire to International Researchers in Engineering, and Summary of Responses

International Review of UK Engineering Research Questionnaire

Name:

Institution:

Department:

1 What is your own field of expertise? 7 How does the international standing of the UK university research in your field compare with the situation 10 years ago? a much better ■ 2 How would you rate your awareness of UK b better ■ research in your broad field of expertise? c about the same ■ a high ■ d worse ■ b low ■ e much worse ■ c unaware ■ 8 What are the three most exciting developments in 3 In your area of expertise name the leading your broad field of expertise in the last 5-10 years? two or three UK university research groups. 1

2

3

9 Of the developments named in 8, have UK 4 How do the groups named above compare engineers been: internationally? Are they: a at the forefront in an innovative way? ■ a leading ■ b in a more derivative way, somewhat b higher than average ■ behind the leaders? ■ c about average ■ c hardly involved? ■ d lower than average ■ 10 Do you have any other comments or suggestions that you would like to be drawn to the attention 5 Please specify up to three other UK university of the international review panel? research groups in engineering that you consider to have a significant international profile.

1

2

3

6 In your opinion is UK university research in your field internationally: a leading ■ b higher than average ■ c about average ■ Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. d lower than average ■ Please return by email to: [email protected]

The Wealth of a Nation 34 Summary of responses to questions: 2, 4, 6, 7, 9

The following pie charts represent the tick box returns from the international questionnaire.

Q2 How would you rate your awareness of UK Q7 How does the international standing of the UK research in your broad field of expertise? university research in your field compare with the situation 10 years ago?

■ high ■ low ■ unaware

■ much better ■ better ■ about the same ■ worse ■ much worse

Q4 How do the groups named compare internationally? Q9 Of the developments named in 8, have UK engineers been:

■ leading ■ higher than average ■ about average ■ lower than average

■ at the forefront ■ more derivative ■ hardly involved

Q6 In your opinion is UK university research in your field internationally:

■ leading ■ higher than average ■ about average ■ lower than average

35 Appendix VII

Panel impressions of response to question 10

Of the 124 international researchers who responded in detail, the division of respondents into different fields of engineering as conventionally defined was approximately:

■ Civil Engineering 20 ■ Electrical Engineering 22 ■ Mechanical Engineering 21 ■ Chemical Engineering 23 ■ Materials 11 ■ Computers 7 ■ Bio-engineering 8

There was a smaller number of responders who were in other fields or who were too general to be classified by field. To a first approximation, the impressions below were field independent.

■ Engineering research in the UK, when compared to other industrialised countries, while still very good in many areas, has lost ground over the past decade, and perhaps over a longer period of time.

■ There is a perception that well-established researchers are being funded over younger faculty who may have potentially the best ideas and the most energy.

■ Research support is spread too thinly, leaving the very best groups or individuals under-funded, and some less competitive groups or individuals with a greater share of the funding than would produce the greatest return for the nation overall.

■ There is not enough interaction across disciplines to allow UK research to be as competitive as it might be in an age of rapid dissemination of ideas among fields and among countries. For example, research done by chemical engineers in other countries is performed in departments of chemistry and other disciplinary departments in the UK.

■ Unlike other countries, the UK has not invested in central facilities of expensive equipment that researchers from many universities can share. Hence research topics pursued in universities in these other countries cannot be pursued in the UK. This is a competitive disadvantage for the researchers in the UK, and ultimately for the UK economy.

The Wealth of a Nation 36 Appendix VIII

Questionnaire to UK University Engineering Department Heads

International Review of UK Engineering Research Questionnaire

Name:

Institution:

Department:

1 What are your department’s top three research 4 Can you suggest three changes that would strengths? do most to strengthen UK engineering research Please provide, in annex 1, brief evidence of peer in universities, indicating why acknowledgement, success with different funding sources, reference to RAE outcomes etc. 1

1 2

2 3

3 5 Has your department undergone significant change in the last five years? If so what? 2 What direction will your top three research areas take in the next ten years? Will they build on existing strengths, be new research directions, what will your requirements be?

1

2

3

6 Are you aware of any plans to radically change your department in the future? If so what? 3 What are the top three most significant achievements made in your department in the last 10 years? Please provide, in annex 1, brief evidence of peer acknowledgement, awards, patents granted, spin-out companies formed, publications etc.

1

2

3 Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. Please return by email to: [email protected]

37 Appendix VIII

Panel impressions from reading the responses of 43 department heads to question 4

■ There was considerable concern about faculty salaries and postgraduate student stipends not being competitive with industrial salaries or academic salaries and stipends in other countries. This makes it difficult to keep the best faculty in the UK, to attract the best students into postgraduate research, and to enable people in industry to move into a university.

■ There was considerable desire for more interaction between industry and UK academic engineering researchers, both staff and postgraduate students. Some mentioned that opportunities for students to spend a summer in industry would be beneficial to their education.

■ There was considerable desire for more interaction across disciplines, for more interaction among universities, and for more interaction among researchers from different countries.

The concern about academic salaries and stipends was wide-spread enough to warrant a study that would:

1 Compare academic salaries in the UK with similar salaries in the EU countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the U.S., and likewise compare the differences between the top salaries in these countries with the top salaries in the UK.

2 Compare starting industrial salaries for PhD graduates in the UK with comparable salaries in the above-mentioned countries.

3 Compare postgraduate student stipends with salaries in industry for people of comparable age, background, and ability.

The issue of faculty salaries being substandard on an international scale has been mentioned in the first Engineering Review, and the recent Materials, Computer Science and Chemistry Reviews. If found to be true by the proposed study, and if the UK truly wishes to be competitive in research that leads to economically competitive products and services, this issue of substandard salaries should be addressed substantively and promptly.

The Wealth of a Nation 38 Appendix IX

Preserving Inventions through Patents

Most valuable inventions will need protection through foreign patents in order that the full economic potential can be realised. However, the issue of ownership of the patent has several subtle, not generally well understood, but very critical implications with respect to being able to successfully exploit and defend the patent abroad. The following discussion pertains to patent rights in the US. To develop the full value for patents, it is preferable that there be one clear owner of the patent irrespective of who was involved (be they academic staff, research associates, students or technicians) in the development of the underlying invention, or who might conceivably claim to be involved (due to their presence during discussions in a lab or tea room). Two serious problems are created when there are multiple potential owners of IP (e.g. when, as in some UK universities, the university can be the owner of a patent developed by academic staff, but students can also be individual owners of patents in which they have been involved).

Firstly, in the United States, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, any co-owner can proceed with commercialisation without the consent of other owners. Therefore, unless there is a single owner, one cannot guarantee to a third party that it will be investing in or licensing full right and title to the patent being transferred. This can be a serious obstacle to commercialisation unless all the identified inventors/owners agree to exclusive licensing, because neither they nor the potential licensee can be certain that additional researchers/students/faculty will not ‘come out of the woodwork’ at some point, claiming that they had an inventive contribution to the patent. Even if frivolous, such claims can result in extensive legal costs and delays in US courts, due to the prevalence of lawyers working on a contingency basis (i.e. without immediate charge or any real financial risk to the claimant but in anticipation of a percentage of any settlement – the usual outcome because it is cheaper to settle than to prove one was right and the claim is frivolous). If the claim is not frivolous and the claimant is named an inventor, this would give the late-comer an ownership interest and introduce another person with title.

Secondly, each claim in a patent has its own inventor(s) and different claims may have different inventors. An invention needs to be novel and non-obvious to those skilled in the art. In the United States, however, novelty and non-obviousness depend on what the inventor(s) knew at the time that the claim was invented, even if that information was not yet in the public domain (secret prior art). Failure to disclose to the United States Patent Office any secret prior art, even that of another inventor on a different claim in the same application, can invalidate the patent because of each inventor’s duty of disclosure. This is a problem given the way that most University laboratories work in practice. The secret prior art problem is not applicable if all inventors had been obligated to assign their rights to the same entity at the time of invention. Later assignment cannot fix the problem. Secret prior art looms as a mammoth problem for universities when there is not a single, pre-agreed owner, although this law is subject to change.

Establishing patents that have a high probability of surviving a legal challenge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. One must also be prepared to defend patents in court, and this will require the patent owners to have sufficient financial resources and the willingness and persistence to fight legal challenges to their patents and to fight infringements of their patents by others.

For all of these reasons many universities in the United States require all faculty, staff and students to sign a patent agreement assigning rights of any invention developed on ‘university time’ to the university.

39

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February 2005 ISBN 1-904425-48-8