Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council LEADERSHIP DISCOVERY INNOVATION IMPACT REPORT 2016-2017 Contents Summary 2 EPSRC at a glance 4 Delivery Plan 2016-2020: Ambitions built on strong foundations 5 Connected nation: Technology for a superfast internet 6 Resilient nation: Energy security – batteries and fuel cells 8 Healthy nation: Advances in MRI scanning 10 Productive nation: Lasers in manufacturing 12 Maintaining the UK’s research leadership in EPS disciplines 14 High quality, high impact publications 14 Awards and recognition 15 Pushing the boundary of our understanding and challenging convention 16 EPSRC investments to capture opportunities in emerging areas 17 EPSRC’s research at the heart of discovery and innovation 18 Creating the UK businesses of the future 18 Maximising impact through collaboration 19 Developing a skilled workforce to reap the benefits of technological advancements 21 Investing in ‘world class labs’ to support cutting edge research and its translation 23 International impact of EPSRC-funded research 24 Methodological developments and future challenges 26 Impact study: Socio-economic impact of EPSRC’s investment in research equipment 26 Researchfish: Outcomes collected from EPSRC-funded research 26 Metrics 28 Bibliography 33 1 EPSRC Impact Report 2016-2017 Summary EPSRC funds research and training that feeds into the knowledge and innovation ecosystem. Our focus is on funding excellence and providing flexible mechanisms that support the generation of new ideas and the translation of knowledge for scientific, social and economic benefits. Through our funding we successfully maintain the UK’s leadership in engineering and physical sciences (EPS) research. We fund research and training to develop the highly-skilled leaders and workforce that the country needs and to support the creation of products and services through linkages within the innovation system. Our funding for excellent research aims to maintain and enhance In terms of overall the UK’s research leadership in the EPS disciplines. The distribution impact, EPSRC-funded of our funding portfolio maintains a healthy pipeline of research, research produced publications from discovery through to innovation. ’’that are well above the world average in terms Knowledge generated from research is key to future innovation. EPSRC of field-weighted maintains a healthy pipeline of research which feeds through to translation citation impact of that knowledge to bring economic and social benefit to the UK. In (FWCI). [1] particular, we place an emphasis on maintaining and supporting high quality research across the EPS disciplines and managing a balanced portfolio of Analysis of Research Publications Arising from Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research ‘investigator led’ and research with ‘strategic intent’ focused on national Prepared by Council Elsevier’s Analytical Services need. Our flagship investments, such as The Alan Turing Institute and the Quantum Technologies Hubs, continue to ensure that the UK builds research excellence in emerging technological areas. Both of these investments EPSRC have strong engagement with businesses evident from a healthy portfolio of commissioned partnerships, collborations and leverage1. EPSRC’s expenditure in 2016/17 Elsevier study was £956 million.The researchers that we support are highly valued in the 2017. research community and are leaders in their field. Publications arising from EPSRC funding have a high impact consistently across all the EPS disciplines and are cited more often than the world average for that subject. EPSRC-funded research plays a vital role in the UK innovation Firms involved in projects landscape. The research excellence that we support attracts funded by EPSRC benefit much investment from businesses in the high value industrial sectors. We more in terms of employment fund a wide variety of research from knowledge driven ‘discovery ’’and turnover growth, research’ to research that is closer to translation into social and increasing their scale by 27% economic benefits. This helps maintain the healthy pipeline of and their turnover by ideas and inventions at different stages which is critical for future more than 30%, innovations. six years after the start of the EPSRC provides the flexible support and routes of engagement to connect Assessing the business receiving researchers with businesses and other relevant organisations, so that project. [2] performance effects of -funded science, research publicly the research outcomes can be translated to impact. The linkages created and innovation grants through our funded research and training fuels innovation. As of 1 April 2017 2 around 55 per cent of our portfolio was collaborative with ‘users’ of research, ERC Research Paper 61 which included 542 new organisations3. Across our portfolio our investments August 2017 leveraged around £1.2 billion from user organisations which included 4 businesses, charities and government departments. Around 670 spin-outs ERC paper 2017 8 independent research. 1 have been attributed to EPSRC funding over the last 35 years. 1 Annual reports: Alan Turing: https://aticdn.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/2017/07/Turing_AnnualReport_Members.pdf; Quantum Imaging hub: http://uknqt. epsrc.ac.uk/files/quanticannualreport1516/, Quantum communications hub: http://uknqt.epsrc.ac.uk/files/qcommshubannualreport1516/, Networked Quantum technologies hub: https://nqit.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.nqit.ox.ac.uk/files/2017-06/NQIT%20Annual%20Report%202017%20for%20web.pdf, Quantum hub sensors and metrology: www.quantumsensors.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/qt-hub-annual-report-2015-2016-web.pdf 2 By value of grants that were current on 1 April 2017. 3 User organisations with whom we have not collaborated in the last ten years. 2 4 This count includes only spin-outs that are still active as per Companies House data and excludes those that were spun out, but are no longer active. The research that we fund, from ‘discovery’ through to translation, supports future innovations and will be key to the success of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. Our investments in the Faraday Institute to drive fundamental research and development in battery technologies, and in the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hubs, contribute directly to the Industrial Strategy. Around 78 per cent of research grants5 announced in 2016/17 were relevant to key industrial sectors such as aerospace, automotive, chemicals, and other manufacturing and service sectors. EPSRC continues to invest in strengthening links between the academic base and industry, with the announcement of a £138 million investment in research- business partnerships in July 20176. This includes a £78 million new initiative, a set of Prosperity Partnerships with contributions from EPSRC, Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), partner organisations and universities and £60 million from EPSRC for 33 universities to advance their Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAA)7.We are also continuing joint investments and partnerships with other funders of research and Innovate UK (IUK) which enables us to support the impacts from our funded research. The teams emerging We train and support the highly skilled scientists and engineers from the CDT will be the next- who drive research and innovation. Our doctoral training prepares generation business leaders the highly numerate, analytical workforce that is required for ’’who will solve some of the most the success of businesses, public services and communities. We pressing challenges faced by support researchers across all career stages. the infrastructure sector. It’s The UK’s leadership in research and innovation and its prosperity depend vitally important that industry on a workforce with high level skills and creativity to seize opportunities has a pipeline of innovation in an ever changing global landscape. EPSRC supports training across all emerging from research career stages in academia, providing a steady flow of highly analytical and relationships with experienced numerate doctoral graduates in EPS disciplines and helping to prepare the people with the knowledge to next generation of leaders in academia and the public and private sectors. implement solutions. The CDT Analysis of the 2015/16 HESA Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education is meeting this need. show that around 40 per cent of our doctoral graduates go on to work in the Tim Embley, Innovation private sector. A recent mid-term review of our Centres for Doctoral Training Director, Costain [3] (CDTs) [3] captured the breadth of impact that our doctoral training is having on various economic sectors and research areas. The review is informing future EPSRC investment of some £0.5 billion in training highly skilled scientists and engineers through CDTs. This report presents some of the impact highlights of 2016/17. It summarises how EPSRC research and training supports the UK’s leadership in research and translates into growth and benefits to society. 5 Based on numbers of grants which had an industrial sector identified. 6 www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/partnershipsprosperousnation 7 IAAs allow institutions the flexibility to operate tailored schemes that help increase the likelihood of impact from their research. The IAAs speed up the contribution that scientists make towards new innovation, successful businesses and the economic returns that benefit the UK. 8 Using data on funding and partnership from Gateway to Research on all funded projects by the UK Research