Making Research Relevant to Industry

Brought to you by The Academic & Industry Group

In reversal of the usual approach taken by the Academic & Industry SIG, technology leaders within business will ‘pitch’ their organisations future activities to research focussed academics with the intention of attracting them to work in those areas.

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About the event

In reversal of the usual approach taken by the Academic & Industry SIG, technology leaders within business will ‘pitch’ their organisations future activities to research focussed academics with the intention of attracting them to work in those areas. To this end, both large and small business enterprises will present the vision that they view as key to success of their business over both the medium and long term. Hosted at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, this half day event welcomes delegates to investigate the possibilities for cooperation and/or collaborative project

Frequently it is heard from industry representatives is that university research often lacks relevance to their businesses. This issue is often quoted as a significant impediment to the success of the UK economy. This half day event, hosted by the IfM, aims to look at improving communication between the figureheads that are involved in research and development within industrial organisations, and those conducting research in academia.

Don’t miss this event which aims to explore options in improving, communication between research in academia and R&D within industrial organisations, through speaker presentations, poster board sessions and ample networking opportunities.

During the ample networking sessions, the academic researchers will then have the opportunity to engage with representatives from the invited companies with the aim of investigating the possibilities for cooperation and/or collaborative projects

Confirmed speakers:

We will also be joined by Claus Bendtsen, Head of Computational Biology of AstraZeneca who will be an additional panelist.

This SIG is championed by Marc Bailey of Nokia Technologies Division, Bozidar Radunovic of Microsoft Research, Claudio Marinelli of Applied Graphene Materials, Dave Roberts of Jabooh Software Solutions and Ian Wassell of University of Cambridge. We are also extremely grateful to the Institute of Manufacturing (IfM) for hosting this event, to our lunch sponsors Microlease & Agilent Technologies, and supporters, Cambridge CleanTech.

To follow this SIG on Twitter, @CambWireless, please use #CWAI

This SIG is championed by Marc Bailey of Nokia Technologies, Bozidar Radunovic of Microsoft Research, Claudio Marinelli of Applied Graphene Materials, Dave Roberts of Jabooh Software Solutions and Ian Wassell of University of Cambridge. We are also extremely grateful to the Institute of Manufacturing (IfM) for hosting this event, to our lunch sponsors Microlease & Agilent Technologies and to our supporter Cambridge Cleantech.To follow this SIG on Twitter, @cambwireless, please use #CWAI

Lunch is jointly sponsored by Electro Rent

Electro Rent are test equipment specialists with over 50 years of experience providing access to the latest test and measurement technology.

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Lunch is jointly sponsored by Keysight Technologies

Whatever your use case, when you are designing, emulating, measuring, or testing your next engineering breakthrough, Keysight has a solution to help you innovate faster and with more confidence.

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Supported by Cambridge Cleantech

Cambridge Cleantech is the members’ organisation supporting the growth of environmental goods and services or “cleantech” companies in Greater Cambridge and across the region. Their ambitious plans are to further develop Cambridge as a leading cleantech centre in Europe and in doing so help promote the next wave of the Cambridge hi-tech cluster. Cambridge Cleantech will encourage supply chain opportunities for companies in the sector, enable shared experience of innovative growth businesses and provide collective services such as access to finance, government regulatory updates and links to international partners.

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Agenda

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The information supplied below may be subject to change before the event.

12:00

Registration & Networking over Lunch

13:00

Introduction to the CW Academic & Industry SIG from Ian Wassell of University of Cambridge

13:10

Welcome from our host Prof. Ian Hutchings, GKN Professor of Manufacturing Engineering, IfM

13:20

Inspiring research through industrial collaboration: Opportunities and Challenges; Tim Minshall, Reader in Technology and Innovation Management, IfM

Working with industry partners can provide academic researchers with exciting research opportunities, sources of funding, and increased likelihood of ensuring the research results lead to impact. There are also many areas where such partnerships can prove challenging for both sides. This talk will present a short overview of the key issues, and the approaches that can be used to improve the chance of mutually successful outcomes.

13:50

Q&A

13:55

Academic Collaborations; George Matich, Chief Technologist (Communications & Network Systems) Selex ES

Selex ES Limited has a long history of collaborating with world class Academic Institutions both in the UK and around the world. This history most probably began when Professor Fleming the inventor of the Thermionic Valve at UCL was employed as a consultant to Guglielmo Marconi to support the development of world leading wireless technology nearly a century ago. Moving on from these beginnings Selex ES Limited continues to maintain many close collaborations with academia. This talk provides an overview of some of their collaborations, together with an sight into experiences of knowledge and technology acquisition via the global Academic Community.

14:15

Q&A

14:20

Starting Small: SMEs and Research chaired by Marc Bailey of Nokia Technologies

Session 1 – Claudio Marinelli of Applied Graphene Materials
Session 2 – Bill Munday of Blendology
Session 3 – Jonathon Chambers of Loughborough University

14:35

Refreshment break with opportunities to visit the poster board displays

15:15

Airborne Ice and Snow Radars (and other EM Sensors); Carl Robinson, Airborne Survey Engineer, British Antarctic Survey

BAS will present their future aspirations for antenna, transmission, reception and data logging technologies that will facilitate their future experimental programme. BAS uses airborne radar to study the Antarctic ice sheets and is now working on airborne radar to survey the top hundreds of metres of snow and ice to a resolution of 2cm. This is a 2 to 8GHz CW system employing digital and RF technology to achieve frequency agility. BAS also deploys various Electromagnetic (EM) sensors for sea ice measurement that present unique technical challenges.

16:35

Q&A

16:40

How to make corporate R&D useful to industry; Dr Chris Winter, Partner, New Venture Partners

This talk will look at different ways to think about planning and running R&D based on experiences in intellectual properties (IP) exploitation and the venture model of building companies. R&D has a very low success rate of converting projects in to commerce successes that is reflected in low values typically placed on the IP generated by R&D. The net result is that R&D can destroy value, with the value of the generated IP being less than the aggregated cost. By thinking back from the final product to the start point can we learn new ways to run R&D and derive useful insights on how to balance aspects such as incremental and “blue sky” research focus, disruptive technology and disruptive business models. The talk will draw from experiences in the commercialisation of industrial as well as well academic R&D.

17:00

Q&A

17:05

Open Forum chaired by Marc Bailey of Nokia Technologies

With all speakers, SMEs, and additional panellist, Claus Bendtsen, Head of Computational Biology, AstraZeneca

17:30

Event Closes Please fill in evaluation forms

Speakers

Claus Bendtsen - Head of Computational Biology, AstraZeneca

Claus Bendtsen (AstraZeneca)

George Matich - Chief Technologist, Leonardo

George Matich (Selex Galileo Ltd)

Tim Minshall - Senior Lecturer, University of Cambridge

Carl Robinson - Head of Airborne Survey Technology & RPAS, British Antarctic Survey

Carl Robinson (British Antarctic Survey (Radars Project) )

Chris Winter - Partner, New Venture Partners LLC

Dr Winter is a partner in NVP, a transatlantic VC firm specialising in corporate spin outs. He provides innovation consultancy to major corporations and R&D facilities, and is involved in setting up innovation centres in the UK and Italy. He was formerly CTO at Brightstar, BT's corporate incubator, VP engineering at a Cambridge software company and Head of Futures research at BT. He has been involved in creating more than 30 spin-outs and start-ups.

SIG Champions

Antonio Di Buono - Research Technologist, National Nuclear Laboratory

Antonio is a Research Technologist in the Instrumentation and In-situ Analysis team. He is working on several aspects of instrumentation development, focusing on wireless communications for nuclear decommissioning environments and the use of digital technologies. During his PhD project on Wireless Communications in Nuclear Decommissioning Environments he gained essential digital skills for the deployment of wireless technologies in nuclear environments. He focused on the radio frequency propagation and data transmission through reinforced concrete wall structures and the radiation tolerance of electronic components. Antonio joined NNL after completing his PhD project at the Centre for Innovative Nuclear Decommissioning (CINDe) in 2020. His research involved the design, prototyping and experimental evaluation of wireless sensing systems to support decommissioning activities and to provide remote sensing capability in nuclear material storage facilities. Antonio is an active member of the Nuclear Institute and European Nuclear Society Young Generation Network (ENS-YGN). He is a member of the European Nuclear Society - High Scientific Council and University Liaison for the North West Branch - Nuclear Institute.

John Haine - Visiting Professor, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)

John Haine has spent his career in the electronics and communications industry, working for large corporations and with four Cambridge start-ups. His technical background includes R&D in radio circuitry and microwave circuit theory; and the design of novel radio systems for cordless telephony, mobile data, fixed wireless access and IoT communications. He has led standardisation activities in mobile data and FWA in ETSI, and contributed to WiMax in IEEE. At various times he has been involved in and led fund-raising and M&A activities. In 1999 he joined TTP Communications working on research, technology strategy and M&A; and after the company’s acquisition by Motorola became Director of Technology Strategy in Motorola Mobile Devices. After leaving Motorola he was CTO Enterprise Systems with ip.access, a manufacturer of GSM picocells and 3G femtocells. In early 2010 he joined Cognovo, which was acquired by u-blox AG in 2012. He led u-blox' involvement in 3GPP NB-IoT standardisation and the company's initial development of the first modules for trials and demonstrations. Now retired from u-blox he is an Honorary Professor in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Bristol University, where he chairs the SWAN Prosperity Partnership Project external advisory board . He was founder chair and is Board Member Emeritus of the IoT Security Foundation. He served on the CW Board chaired the Editorial Board of the CW Journal.  John has a first degree from Birmingham (1971) and a PhD from Leeds (1977) universities, and is a Life Member of the IEEE.

Kevin Morris - Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, University of Leeds, Head of School, University of Leeds - School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering

Kevin Morris received the B.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K., in 1995 and 2000, respectively. He is currently a Professor of Radio Frequency engineering and Head of the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds. He has authored or co-authored over 130 academic papers, and he holds five patents. His research principally concerns looking at methods of reducing power consumption in communications systems with specific interest in the design of efficient frequency flexible transceivers. He is currently involved with several industrial and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) research projects. He was the Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Bristol from 2014 to 2018.

Ian Wassell - Associate Professor, Digital Technology Group, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Dr Ian Wassell joined the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory as a Senior Lecturer in January 2006. Prior to this, he was with the Department of Engineering for six years. He received the PhD degree from the University of Southampton in 1990 and the BSc., BEng. (Honours) Degrees (First Class) from the University of Loughborough in 1983. He has in excess of 25 years experience in radio communication systems gained via positions in industry and academia and has published more than 200 papers. His research interests include broadband wireless networks, wireless sensor networks, radio propagation, coding, communication signal processing, compressive sampling, and image processing and classification.

Event Location

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Location info

Institute of Manufacturing (IfM) University of Cambridge,17 Charles Babbage Rd, Cambridge CB3 0FS

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