THE IMPACTS OF NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FUNDING IN THE UK: A PUBLIC MANAGEMENT EVALUATION SUMMARY

STFC Impact Report 2013 ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shoots a laser guide star into the sky. The VLT is the world’s most advanced optical instrument, producing images of the faintest and most remote objects in the Universe. (Credit: ESO). Contents 1 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 2 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5 3 World Class Research.............................................................................................................. 6 4 World Class Innovation ........................................................................................................14 5 World Class Skills ..................................................................................................................24 6 Methodological developments and future challenges .....................................................28 7 Appendices.............................................................................................................................30 Appendix 1 STFC publication statistics ..................................................................................30 Appendix 2 STFC publications compared to UK physical sciences .....................................33 Appendix 3 Interim evaluation results for Explore your Universe ......................................34 Appendix 4 STFC statistics .......................................................................................................35 Appendix 5 Glossary .................................................................................................................36 Appendix 6 References .............................................................................................................37 Front cover: Peter Higgs, British theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate. He predicted the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle recently discovered at CERN. (Credit: CERN). Note: All images are courtesy of STFC unless otherwise stated. STFC Impact Report 2013 1 1. Executive Summary The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is one of seven UK Research Councils. Our research seeks to understand the Universe from the largest astronomical scale to the tiniest constituents of matter, yet creates impact on a very tangible, human level. From drug discovery to airport security, hydrogen-powered cars to accident scene emergency care - our impact is felt across many aspects of daily life. We achieve this extraordinary breadth of impact in three ways. Firstly, we invest in cutting-edge science that is world-leading in research quality and a rich source of innovation through the technical developments that it stimulates. Secondly, by providing access to large-scale scientiic facilities we support interdisciplinary research that spans a range of physical and life sciences, enabling research, innovation and skills training in these areas. Thirdly, we are providing increasingly strong connections to business through our Science and Innovation Campuses; promoting academic and industrial collaboration, encouraging translation of our research to market applications and helping to support the Government’s Industrial Strategy. This makes us uniquely equipped to play an important part in supporting the UK’s knowledge economy, creating jobs and generating growth. STFC’s vision is to maximise the impact of our knowledge, skills, facilities and resources for the beneit of the United Kingdom and its people. In 2010, we set out our 10-year strategy1 to deliver this vision, through our three strategic goals of world class research, world class innovation, and world class skills. By monitoring and evaluating our impact, we track our progress towards realising our vision. In this, our third Impact Report, we present quantitative data and case study examples which illustrate the breadth and depth of our economic and societal impact. In particular, we showcase how STFC has played a key role in developing and delivering real impact in two of the Government’s ‘eight great technology’ themes – big data and space. Highlights from this year’s report include: World Class Research • The conirmation of the discovery of the Higgs boson particle at CERN. This particle was irst postulated 50 years ago by British scientist Peter Higgs, who this year won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work. Aside from this major inding, which in terms of its likely future impact has been compared to the discovery of the electron, technology from CERN beneits the UK economy by over £100 billion every year. 2 STFC Impact Report 2013 • STFC’s 50-year contributions to the UK’s world class capabilities in space and big data: we have played a pioneering role in the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, worth over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum. • This year is the 100th anniversary of X-ray crystallography, a technique which has revolutionised our understanding of the structure of materials. STFC’s facilities have been central to this transformation by developing synchrotron procedures that enable new research on viruses like HIV, bird lu and the common cold and provide a key stage in drug discovery - essential to the £8 billion per annum UK pharmaceutical industry. • Our new research uncovered new data on the evolution of the Universe, helped to commercialise graphene, supported the creation of a new vaccine for foot and mouth disease and developed a non-invasive alternative to breast cancer biopsies that could save the NHS £10 – 20 million per annum. • Our research remains amongst the best in the world as measured by citation impact in astronomy, nuclear physics and particle physics. We also consistently outperform the other areas of physical sciences in the UK in terms of research quality. World Class Innovation • Our Campuses host over 230 enterprises and support more than 5,000 jobs. This year our tenant companies at Sci-Tech Daresbury created over 100 jobs, delivered £35 million sales, attracted £63 million of investment and developed 150 new products. • We continue to work with the Technology Strategy Board at our Campuses; their Satellite Applications Catapult at our Harwell Oxford Campus supports the UK space industry set to be worth £40 billion by 2030. • Our business incubation activities are growing; the new European Space Agency (ESA) Business Incubation Centre Harwell has enabled 22 companies to develop real-world applications for space technology. • The Rainbow Seed Fund, in which STFC is the lead partner, has invested £7 million in 29 high technology start-up companies since 2002, leveraging an additional £127 million. • Spin-outs from our laboratories continue to be successful: the Electrospinning Company is helping to manufacture a structure that mimics a real liver to develop medication which will target the 10,000 people in Europe currently waiting for a liver transplant. • UK industry won £43 million in contracts from our international subscriptions, a total of £150 million since 2005. Over the past 3 years STFC has doubled the UK’s industrial return from CERN, who considers our model for this work as ‘best practice’ and generating £200 million for the UK economy. World Class Skills • STFC research inspires future generations to study STEM subjects. Our research areas attract 90% of undergraduates who study physics and this year the UK saw the third successive increase in university applications to study physics despite an overall decline. • Our current cohort of 782 PhD students are trained in the high-end scientiic, analytic and technical skills which drive the knowledge-intensive wealth creation in the economy. • STFC also provided 16,800 training days to students from many disciplines (an increase of 30% from last year), across our facilities and departments. • STFC provides the design tools for the £23 billion microelectronics industry. We have helped train the majority of European microelectronics engineers over the past 25 years. • From 2009 to 2012 our public engagement programmes reached 58 million people, this year we engaged 2 million of these people in face-to-face activities. Observation of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS experiment at CERN. (Credit: CERN). STFC Impact Report 2013 3 World Class Research World Class Innovation World Class Skills ESO’s remote Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope. (Credit: ESO). 4 STFC Impact Report 2013 2. Introduction STFC delivers impact in research, innovation and skills through three distinct but interrelated functions: • Grant-supported programmes: supporting fundamental research in particle physics, astronomy, nuclear physics and space science through UK universities. • Multidisciplinary research facilities: providing UK university and industrial researchers with access to a range of world-leading, large-scale facilities and organisations, both within the UK and abroad. • The facilities provided by STFC in the UK include Diamond Light Source (DLS), ISIS and the Central Laser Facility (CLF). These are the national synchrotron, neutron and laser facilities. • STFC manages the UK’s participation as a partner in the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) neutron source in France. • STFC oversees the UK’s membership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental astronomical research organisation, and the UK’s subscription to CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. • Campuses: building the Science and Innovation Campuses, Sci-Tech Daresbury and Harwell Oxford, to provide an environment where innovation lourishes to stimulate jobs and growth. Our role within the Research Councils is thus uniquely broad: we commission and deliver our own scientiic programme; and, through our facilities and Campuses, we enable our strategic partners to deliver their programmes. Strong relationships are core to our role and many of our impacts are generated in collaboration with others, especially the other Research Councils and the Technology Strategy Board. As would be expected from such an organisation, we deliver impacts of varying types, magnitudes and timescales: • Direct – relatively easy to quantify, attribute and predict, these outputs are short- to medium-term in nature. • Indirect – may only be predictable in general terms. These impacts often occur when original research is used in a novel manner and normally materialise over the medium-term. • Global – signiicant international impact which has an effect on people’s daily lives. This kind of impact arises infrequently and generally happens over the longer term. This report is structured around our three strategic goals of research, innovation and skills and illustrates how our different delivery functions generate a range of impacts on varying timescales. We also review the improvements we are making in our impact evaluation activities. Harwell Oxford, one of the UK’s foremost Science and Innovation Campuses. STFC Impact Report 2013 5 3. World Class Research 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Research statistics Our ambition is to sustain the UK’s position as one of the world’s leading research nations and support the growth of a high-tech UK economy. This section demonstrates our progress towards this goal, starting with research statistics to give the scale and context of our research. STFC creates direct impact by generating new knowledge from fundamental research through our grant-funded programmes and at our facilities. That new knowledge can then create long-term impact and beneits for society and the economy through research exploitation and the development of enabling technologies. In addition, our Futures Programme harnesses our strengths and capabilities to ind solutions for global challenges. Astronomy, particle physics & nuclear physics Professor Peter Higgs visits the CMS experiment at CERN. (Credit: CERN). 6 STFC Impact Report 2013 • STFC is the UK steward of research in astronomy, particle physics and nuclear physics, supporting 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities. In 2012, researchers in these ields published 1,100 peerreviewed papers. • In 2012/13 we invested £145 million in our research, training and external innovation programmes and £139 million for the UK’s subscriptions to CERN and ESO. • In 2012, over 670 UK particle physicists carried out research at CERN, and around 200 astronomers from the UK carried out research using the telescopes operated by ESO. Science and Technology Facilities Council We measure the strength of our research base by research volume and citation impact. This year we have carried out a new bibliometric analysis2 of these areas using an updated methodology which is described in section 6. We are pleased to report that STFC-funded research continues to be among the best in the world, measured through citation impact (see Appendix 1 for more details). This report also gives a comparison of how we are performing compared to the emerging research nations, also detailed in Appendix 1. i Analysis of publications submitted to our ResearchFish system shows that STFC publications performed better than UK physical sciences as a whole (see Appendix 2). This shows that the research we fund is of a consistently higher quality than the rest of the physical sciences. Both of these analyses demonstrate that we are fulilling our primary strategic objective of delivering world class research. Large-scale facilities • In 2012/13, Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF were used by over 4,200 unique users (an increase of 500 from last year) to carry out over 2,400 experiments and which produced over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals. • The ESRF and the ILL were accessed by over 560 unique UK users in 2012. These users made 850 visits to the facilities. • In 2012 Diamond Light Source recorded 493 new depositions in the Protein Data Bank (PDB)3 (a 30% increase from the previous year), bringing the total to 1,381 in 6 years. In 2012 ESRF recorded 901, bringing the total to 9,327 in 17 years. The PDB is the most signiicant archive for protein structure data in the world and is hence the key archive for researchers and industrialists in biomedical research, helping for example to improve the treatment of many infectious diseases. New facilities and instruments In addition to generating new knowledge from our research programmes, we are continually developing new technology, instruments and facilities. This year we have delivered the KMOS4 instrument to ESO’s Very Large Telescope5 in Chile and MIRI6 for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope7 in an international consortium led by STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC). ALMA8, the most complex ground-based telescope in existence, was also opened this year. We also led the successful site selection for the Square Kilometre Array9 (SKA) radio telescope, established Jodrell Bank as the world-wide SKA headquarters and agreed the UK contribution to the European Extremely Large Telescope10 (E-ELT). 3.3 Generating new knowledge Highlights from the new advances we have been at the forefront of this year include: Nobel Higgs The UK has a world class particle physics community with 670 UK academics using CERN facilities in 2012 and over 220 UK staff are directly employed there. Those staff and users helped to analyse and conirm that the particle discovered at CERN in 2012 was indeed the Higgs boson. The particle was proposed in 1964 by British physicist Professor Peter Higgs to explain why some particles possess mass and others do not. Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were recently honoured for their groundbreaking work on the Higgs boson by winning the Nobel Prize for Physics11, one of the most prestigious awards a scientist can receive. The 2013 award is a triumph not only for the named laureates, but for the many people and organisations who made this discovery possible, for CERN and for the 20 UK universities involved with STFC support. In addition, components for the ATLAS and CMS detectors were built at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). Although the beneits of this discovery may currently not be easy to visualise, some have compared its importance as equivalent to the discovery of the electron, with all the impacts for modern society that this produced. More immediately apparent are the technology spin-offs from CERN. From the World Wide Web to touch screen technology and from treating cancer to cloud computing, spin-offs from CERN have a direct and signiicant impact. They also boost the UK’s economy by over £100 billionii every year. Advances in global disease control Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is one of the most contagious animal diseases and has an estimated global impact of £4 – 13 billion per year12. The 2001 outbreak cost the UK alone around £8 billion13. A team of scientistsiii using the STFC- and Wellcome Trust-funded Diamond Light Source have developed a new methodology14 to produce i ResearchFish is the tool which we use to collect data from our research grants in Universities. We will release results from the 2013 round in early 2014. The impact of the WWW is worth over £120 billion per year to the UK economy, the MRI industry is worth £111 million per year to the UK economy. iii This collaborative research was led by Professor David Stuart, Life Science Director at Diamond Light Source and MRC Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford and Dr Bryan Charleston, Head of Livestock Viral Diseases Programme at BBSRC’s Pirbright Institute and was funded by Defra and the Wellcome Trust. ii STFC Impact Report 2013 7 Science and Technology Facilities Council a FMD vaccine. The new vaccine is synthetic and does not rely on growing a live infectious virus. This makes it much safer to produce and will mean that inoculated cattle can now be distinguished from non-inoculated animals. If this had been possible in 2001, the damaging European ban on British beef imports would have been averted. It is estimated that £520 million per annum to the UK economy was lost due to this ban15. As well as the potential to offset the huge inancial cost of this disease, this work could also improve vaccines to ight human diseases in the future. have been using the STFC/EPSRC-supported SuperSTEM electron microscope to characterise this novel material. For the irst time, research on this facility has shown how the structure of graphene changes when it bonds with other materials and how it can undergo a self-repairing process to mend holes17. This new information about graphene’s unique properties is vital if we are to fully exploit its potential practical applications in ields including bioengineering, composite materials, energy technology and nanotechnology. Looking back 13 billion years to the dawn of time Capturing a cleaner future Acquired by ESA’s Planck space telescope, the most detailed map ever created of the relic radiation from the Big Bang was released this year. The image is the mission’s irst all-sky picture of the oldest light in our Universe, imprinted on the sky when it was just 380 000 years old (13 billion years ago)16. The information extracted from Planck’s map has set a new benchmark in our understanding of the makeup of the Universe and has also revealed some unexplained features that may require new physics to be understood. The UK is playing a major role in Planck; a number of UK institutes and companies were part of the consortium that built two major instruments for the mission with funding from STFC and the UK Space Agency (UKSA). The effect of greenhouse gases is a key environmental issue. Research at STFC’s ISIS and Diamond Light Source facilitiesiv has helped develop a new material called NOTT-300, designed to capture carbon dioxide gas such as that emitted from power stations18. NOTT-300 can remove unwanted greenhouse gases and can be used by industry because it is environmentally friendly and has low production costs. Researchers are currently working to commercialise this product. 3.4 Creating long-term impact Science and innovation are central to the delivery of economic growth and it is universally acknowledged as the best route to building long-term national prosperity in a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy. STFC plays a crucial role in this ecosystem by supporting fundamental research and technology which can have short and long-term impacts, often bringing unforeseen but signiicant improvements to our lives. Along with other key players in these ields, previous investment in STFC research helps support: • A £220 billion physics-based manufacturing sector – this provides 3.9 million jobs (4% of the total UK workforce), which is more than the inance sector19. We provide skilled people, develop technology and support many companies based in this sector including the aerospace, automotive, life sciences and agri-tech industries. The structure of graphene. (Credit: Dreamstime) Characterising graphene First discovered in 2005, graphene is the lightest, strongest and most conductive known material - giving it great commercial potential. Although it is hundreds of times stronger than steel, it is extremely dificult to manipulate and develop into marketable products. This year, scientists iv • A £121 billion digital economy sector20 – the invention of the World Wide Web was supported by STFC funding and research and we pioneered the early development of the web and computer animation technologies in the UK. This research was led by the University of Nottingham in conjunction with Peking University, the University of Oxford, ISIS and Diamond Light Source. The team used the ISIS facility and the Diamond Synchrotron beam to gain important structural information about how the gases bind to the host material and to understand the properties of the NOTT-300 that make it selectively adsorb CO2 and SO2.The research was funded by the ERC Advanced Grant COORDSPACE and EPSRC. 8 STFC Impact Report 2013 Image of the Galileo satellites, part of Europe’s new global navigation satellite system. (Credit: ESA). • A £23 billion microelectronics sector21 – for 25 years STFC has provided training software for all UK microelectronics graduates, providing over 650 universities across Europe with training and expertise vital to the microelectronics industry. • A £8.4 billion pharmaceutical industry22 – our large facilities provide an essential stage in drug development programmes. Fifteen of the world’s current 75 best-selling drugs were developed in Britain using techniques pioneered at STFC. Signiicant long-term impact has been generated through major research programmes funded by STFC and our predecessor organisations. In this, our third Impact Report, we are showcasing our 50-year contribution to the UK’s world class capabilities in space and big data. These are two of the eight great technologies23 highlighted by Government as capabilities in which the UK is, or can become, a world leader. These are the areas which offer signiicant future potential to boost exports and drive economic growth. 50 years of big data impact Every day the world creates and shares 2.5 quintillion bytes of data24 – equivalent to almost 40 million iPadsv worth of information – across an increasingly sophisticated global computer network. Fifty years ago it was hard to imagine how much computing would inluence how we work, create and share information; and yet in general it is not public demand that drives computing advances but the requirements of researchers to collect, store and manipulate increasingly large and more complex data sets. The power of computing developed to analyse massive and mixed scientiic data sets in turn transforms industry and everyday life. STFC and our predecessors have been at the forefront of computing knowhow for the past 50 years. During this time, we have led the way across the whole spectrum of computing capabilities, from high performance computing facilities and digital curation, to graphics and software, from networking to grid infrastructure and the World Wide Web. In the early 1960s, we developed groundbreaking computer graphics and animation technologies to help researchers visualise complex mathematical data sets. This innovative and pioneering approach using computer generated imagery (CGI) caused the Financial Times at the time to pronounce RAL as the home of computer animation in Britain25. STFC’s forebears continued to lead the UK’s CGI ield through the next two decades, most notably creating the computer images for the movie Alien in 1979, the irst signiicant ilm to use CGI and which won an Oscar for best special effects26. The success of this ilm spawned a new sector, with many new companies commercialising the CGI concepts and code developed by STFC and introducing them to new markets. The UK computer animation industry is currently worth £20 billion including £2 billion generated by the video and computer games market. Increasingly large data sets not only required new techniques but increasingly more powerful computers. In 1964 we were one of three research establishments v The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte which is a measurement of digital information storage. A gigabyte is 109 bytes. This assumes that a typical iPad holds 64 gigabytes of data and one quintillion is 1018. STFC Impact Report 2013 9 Science and Technology Facilities Council Computing at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory in the late 1970’s. which hosted an Atlas 1 computer at RAL27, then the world’s most powerful computer28. In the following years we continued to play a pivotal role in the development and support of the UK’s supercomputing hardware and software development capabilities. Today, STFC-funded supercomputers such as Blue Joule29 and DiRACvi are at the cutting-edge of academic and industrial research, helping to model everything from cosmology to weather systems. Blue Joule, opened in 2013 and situated on our Sci-Tech Daresbury Campus, is the UK’s most powerful supercomputer. It is the foundation of STFC’s Hartree Centre, set up to harness the UK’s leading high performance computing capabilities in academia for the beneit of UK industry. It is estimated that successful exploitation of high performance computing could increase Europe’s GDP by 2-3%30 by 2020. These activities have reafirmed the UK’s place as a world leader in high performance computing. Another pillar in the world’s computing revolution has been connectivity. STFC’s predecessor organisations led the UK’s networking effort many years before the invention of the internet. Twenty-ive years ago the web was established at CERN and is now a fundamental part of our lives: 33 million adults accessed the internet every day in the UK last year and it is worth over £121 billion to the UK economy every year31. STFC manages the UK participation in CERN and underpinned the internet’s development in the UK through its early computer networking deployments, hosting the irst UK website, developing web standards vi and protocols, supporting the evolution of the Grid, and spinning-out some notable organisations32. These include: Nominet33, the .co.uk internet registry which manages 10 million UK business domain names; JANET34, which manages the computer network for all UK education, the .ac.uk domain and the JISCMail35 service used by 80% of UK academics (1.2 million users). Big science projects such as those supported by STFC have consistently pushed the boundaries of data volumes and complexity, serving as ‘stretch goals’ that drive technological innovation in computing capability. In the 1990s, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was the irst project to require processing of petabyte scale datasets (a million gigabytesvii) on an international scale and this led to the development of grid computing. The LHC Grid makes use of computer resources distributed across the UK, Europe and worldwide to process the huge volumes of data produced by the LHC and to identify the tiny fraction of collisions in which a Higgs boson is produced. This technology development was supported by the RCUK e-science programme and STFC’s GridPP project and the expertise developed is now supporting the UK and European climate and earth system modelling community through the JASMIN facility36 and the Satellite Applications Catapult37 through the Climate and Environmental Monitoring from Space38 (CEMS) facility. This same approach is now widely used by business and academia as part of the Cloud Computing revolution. STFC supports the DiRAC integrated supercomputing facility for theoretical modelling and HPC-based research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology http://www.stfc.ac.uk/1263.aspx Oct 13. vii The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte which is a measurement of digital information storage. A gigabyte is 109 bytes. A typical iPad holds 64 gigabytes of data. 10 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council As the world becomes increasingly digital, preservation of digital records becomes more and more important across all aspects of daily life; a major task given how quickly innovations in digital media occur. Maintaining access to digital data has been at the heart of STFC science for over 30 years. It is still possible to access the raw data recorded on the ISIS neutron source since its irst experiments over 25 years ago. Working through the Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems, STFC helped to derive the standards which have been adopted as the ‘de facto’ standard for building digital archives39 and the ISO standard for audit and certiication of digital repositories40. Working with partners such as the British Library and CERN, STFC has formed the Alliance for Permanent Access to the Record of Science41 to address issues with long-term preservation of digital data. Looking to the future, the exploding volume of scientiic data sets needed for fundamental science will continue to drive innovation. By 2023, the Square Kilometre Array project will generate 1.3 zettabytesviii of data each month – that’s 1300 billion gigabytes, over 10-times the entire global internet trafic today. Processing such a lood of data will require computers over a thousand times faster than today’s. This is a true stretch goal for the computing industry that may well require a transformative rethink of computer architectures. For this reason industry partners such as IBM and Nvidia are closely involved in the current SKA project engineering phase. A related challenge is reducing the energy consumption of computers to well below current levels. Already, a University of Cambridge computer cluster, built to the SKA system design and supported by STFC, is one of the top two most energyeficient supercomputers in the world (as ranked by the ‘Green 500 list’). The close connection between SKA and the impact on electronic signal processing, computing and big data is one of the reasons why it is a high priority for STFC and why we are taking a strategic lead in the project. Whilst we don’t know exactly how these innovations will affect our daily lives, we can be conident of two things – the discovery science projects that STFC supports will continue to drive innovation in information technology, and the sheer pace of change in that industry means that these innovations will very quickly beneit the daily lives of everyone in the country. 50 years of the UK in space From investigating the formation of the Universe, to SatNav in cars and the daily weather forecast, STFC and our predecessors have played an important role in the UK’s space capabilities over the past 50 years. The UK space industry is strong and growing, with a signiicant share of the global market, which involves over 230 UK-based companies and an annual turnover of £9 billion. STFC plays a crucial role keeping UK capabilities in space research and technology in the vanguard, working in partnership with leading UK universities and institutes, the UKSA, ESA, NASA and other Research Councils to deliver key projects that span the industry-academia boundary. 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of the UK’s presence in space, the 1962 launch of the Ariel-1 satellite to study the Earth’s ionosphereix. This event made the UK the third nation to operate a satellite after the Soviet Union and the USA. Much of the early work behind this launch was carried out at the Appleton Laboratoryx (a predecessor of STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) in collaboration with the University College London, the University of Leicester and the University of Birmingham43. Radar was invented at the Appleton Laboratory in 1935 after groundbreaking work on the ionosphere in the 1920s and 30s. Our daily weather forecast is possible thanks to UK space technology and STFC plays an on-going key role in this capability. A recent development in 2012 saw the launch of the Meteosat Second Generation44 weather satellites which can monitor weather conditions as they develop. More than 50 science and industry partners in the UK have been involved in this project which included STFC’s 200th instrument to be launched into space. Satellite navigation also plays a signiicant role in our daily lives, from in-car guidance to aviation. STFC is playing a crucial role in satellite navigation technologies by determining the impact of space weather on existing satellite navigation systems, and playing a vital role in Galileo, the European programme for a global navigation system. Industries who rely on GPS contribute 7% of UK GDP or £100 billion per annum and the satellite navigation industry is expected to generate £1.45 billion between 2011 and 202045. viii The zettabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. A zettabyte is 1021 bytes. The band of charged particles surrounding the Earth in the upper atmosphere. x The Radio Research Board which formed in 1924 at Ditton Park, Slough established the Radio Research Station in 1927, renamed the Radio Research and Space Research Station in 1965 and was re-named the Appleton Laboratory in 1973. Appleton Laboratory merged with Rutherford Laboratory in 1980. http://www.stfc.ac.uk/RALSpace/resources/PDF/02_50.pdf Oct 2013. ix STFC Impact Report 2013 11 Science and Technology Facilities Council In the past 50 years STFC has helped the UK play a signiicant role in the many space missions which have given us unique information on our Universe, beneiting our daily lives and ensuring that the UK is a leading space nation. New activities to further strengthen the space cluster at our Harwell Oxford Campus are given in the Campus section of this report. 2009 1990 The Hubble Space Telescope is launched. One of the most important astronomical projects of all time; it changes our understanding of space and leads to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as the rate of expansion of the universe. 1985 With instruments built in the UK, GIOTTO is the irst European deep space mission. It sends back unprecedented images; conirming Halley’s comet is billions of years old. 1980 1990 Bepi Columbo, an ESA ‘Cornerstone’ mission, is approved and will launch in 2015. A joint venture between Europe and Japan, it will be the third spacecraft to visit Mercury. It will help our understanding of the formation of the Solar System and its inner rocky planets, including Earth. Much of it will be built in Britain and EADS Astrium is the prime contractor. 2004 Rosetta launches and is the irst spacecraft that will make a long-term study of a comet at close quarters. It is one of the most challenging missions ever undertaken and is due to rendezvous with the Comet 67P in 2014. UK researchers contribute to the space probe and lander. 2000 1995 The Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is launched. SOHO revolutionises our ability to forecast space weather, playing a lead role in early warning systems. The UK plays a signiicant role and UK company Astrium is the prime contractor. Designed to last 2 years, it is still active today. 1997 Cassini-Huygens is the irst mission to make a long term study of Saturn. A joint NASA/ESA/Italian Space Agency project with instruments designed in the UK, the original 4 year mission proves so successful that is now extended to 2017. 2010 2009 ESA launch Herschel, to study the formation of stars and galaxies at previously unexplored wavelengths of light. The UK contribute to the instrumentation of Herschel and UK scientists lead the exploitation of the mission. 2013 The Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is successfully integrated into the James Webb Telescope. MIRI is designed and built by a consortium of 10 EU countries, led by the UK in partnership with NASA. A number of UK institutions are involved, in particular the UKATC (lead), RAL, University of Leicester and EADS Astrium. Timeline of key space missions, in all of which the UK and STFC have played a signiicant role. 12 STFC Impact Report 2013 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council 3.5 Solutions for Global Challenges Improving breast cancer diagnosis STFC established its Futures Programme in 2009 to speciically develop novel, interdisciplinary approaches to solve the current global challenges. We recognise that these are a key Governmental challenge and STFC is committed to using its technological capabilities to help deliver solutions in the ields of energy, environment, healthcare and security. A technique developed at STFC’s Central Laser Facility could remove the need for needle biopsies in breast cancer diagnosis. Two million mammograms are carried out annually in the UK. Suspect scans are recalled and can only be diagnosed through a needle biopsy, with around 80% of biopsies being negative. Exeter University and STFC research funded by EPSRC could lead to the biopsy being replaced by non-invasive screening with instantaneous results. This technique should be available within the next decade, could save the NHS £10-20 million per annum, and avoid unnecessary anxiety for patients. Our Futures Programme was set up to ensure that organisations within these challenge areas were made aware of STFC capabilities and expertise available to help solve their problems. The Futures Programme has run a set of networking events, workshops and funding opportunities across the Global Challenge areas and has funded 17 Studentships, 6 Networks, and 14 Concept Awards. These awards were made to bring different groups of people with new sets of problems into contact with STFC and its community. The following examples illustrate our impact in the global challenge areas: Prolonging North Sea oil reserves Gravity sensors using quantum sensing techniques which have been adapted from satellites can ind new oil and gas ields thanks to a collaboration between STFC and the University of Aberdeen46. The sensor attaches to remote vehicles that work deep under the sea, measuring variations in gravity and density on the seabed that can be used to identify the presence of reserves of oil and natural gas. This technology is much more precise than traditional gravity and density sensors and will speed up identiication of untapped North Sea reserves, estimated to be worth £120 billion to the UK economy47. GHOST addressing climate change GHOST (Green House Observations of the Stratosphere & Troposphere) is a NERC- and STFC-funded project to build an instrument at the UKATC which will ly on the 2015 NASA Global Hawk mission. Global Hawk is an unmanned plane which can measure rapidly evolving atmospheric phenomena in situ for the irst time. GHOST will give Global Hawk improved capabilities to measure greenhouse gases and it is expected that knowledge from this project will inform future global policy on climate change. Reining crime scene forensics The odds of two individuals having identical ingerprints are 64 billion to one, making them ideal for identiication in criminal investigations. Research carried out at the STFCfunded ILL and ISIS facilities by the University of Leicester could lead to better identiication of hidden ingerprints on knives, guns and other metal surfaces. Currently only 10% of hidden ingerprints taken from crime scenes are usable in court, and this new way of detecting prints may dramatically improve the accuracy of crime scene forensics. Credit: Dreamstime. STFC Impact Report 2013 13 4. World Class Innovation 4.1 Introduction Our ambition is to realise the innovative capacity of STFC’s science and research facilities to support the growth of the UK economy. We deliver considerable impact through our National Science and Innovation Campuses which offer a dynamic environment for innovation to lourish. We also support commercialisation from our grantfunded programmes through a range of schemes, the commercialisation of STFC intellectual property, and we support UK business to win contracts from our facilities and subscriptions. 4.2 Delivering impact through the National Science and Innovation Campuses Harwell Oxford and Sci-Tech Daresbury are the UK’s foremost Science and Innovation Campuses and are both designated as Enterprise Zones. STFC is a major partner in the Campuses; they are built around STFC research laboratories and the cluster of technical expertise which they contain. These Campuses host over 230 enterprises and support more than 5,000 jobs. Campus tenant companies experience low failure rates, strong growth, high-value job creation and high levels of commercial innovation. The proximity to STFC’s facilities and expertise, together with the provision of irst-rate accommodation and business support services, has attracted spin-outs, SMEs, and large blue chip industries alike. We are committed to growing this contribution to the regional and national economy. 4.2.1 Sci-Tech Daresbury Sci-Tech Daresbury48 has been in operation since 2006 and is now home to more than 110 thriving start-up businesses, several of which have chosen to relocate to Daresbury from overseas. The 2012 annual tenant survey carried out with 83 companies on Campus shows that signiicant progress has been made in realising the objective to minimise business failure and accelerate business growth in challenging economic circumstances. In 2012 the Campus companies: • Delivered £34.8 million sales (up from £28.3 million last year), 29% of which were exports (up from 25% last year). 72% of companies saw sales growth. • Attracted £63 million in investment (making a total of £149 million since 2010). • Developed 147 new products, with 22% of companies iling patents. In nearly 8 years, only 9 companies have gone into administration (but none during the last year) and, of those, 6 have re-started and 1 was acquired by another Campus company. Investment for North West materials and manufacturing companies STFC has partnered with the Technology Strategy Board as a ‘cluster champion’ to deliver business support as part of its Launchpad competitions. The £2 million Materials and Manufacturing Northwest Launchpad50 is designed to accelerate new business projects and stimulate start-up businesses centred around the cluster of materials and manufacturing companies at Sci-Tech Daresbury and the Runcorn Heath Business and Technical Park. A key aim of the scheme is also to strengthen this cluster and STFC, as its chosen cluster champion, will deliver business support services to successful applicants. The Technology Strategy Board are learning from STFC’s business and investment support activities to enhance and improve their future Launchpad competitions and overall SME support programmes. • Employed 448 people, of which 72% are educated to bachelor degree or above (the UK average is 13%49). • Created 106 FTE jobs, an increase of 71% on the previous year. 76% of companies are forecasting further recruitment in 2013 - 175 new jobs are forecast, in roles such as software development, specialist IT, engineering and business development. Daresbury Laboratory Tower. 14 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council Hartree Centre As highlighted earlier in this report, the UK has aspirations to be at the forefront of the big data revolution; the Hartree Centre51 is a key STFC strength in this area. Hartree is the world’s largest centre dedicated to high performance computing software development and home to Blue Joule, the most powerful supercomputer in the UK. The UK Government has invested over £50 million in the Hartree Centre to support the progress of powereficient computing technologies designed for a range of industrial and scientiic applications. As stated earlier in this report, it is estimated that successful exploitation of high performance computing could potentially increase Europe’s GDP by 2%–3% by 202052. The Hartree Centre focuses on partnerships with business and academia to unlock the commercial opportunities offered by high performance computing systems. This has the beneit of utilising and growing UK skills in this area and has attracted IBM as the major partner to develop these opportunities. The Centre is working closely with a number of major companies such as Unilever, where we have established a formal research partnership. Accelerating the product discovery process at Unilever Inventing, making and selling home and personal care products can be more complex and time consuming than imagined. For example formulating a fabric conditioner, as this product can to be unstable, especially when shipped to very cold or hot countries. Traditional stability tests tend to be time-consuming, typically taking 8 to 12 weeks. However, on a supercomputer comparable tests only take 45 minutes. The partnership with the Hartree Centre therefore gives Unilever a competitive advantage by harnessing the power of supercomputers to accelerate the product development process. In addition to modelling their products using computing power, Unilever also use our facilities such as ISIS to physically test these models. Visualisation suite at the Hartree Centre, Daresbury Laboratory. STFC Impact Report 2013 15 4.2.2 Harwell Oxford Campus The Harwell Oxford Campus53 is part of the Science Vale UK Enterprise Zone54 and hosts 150 organisations including start-ups and multi-national organisations focusing on a range of commercial applications. The Technology Strategy Board has recently established the Satellite Applications Catapult55 at the Campus as part of the Harwell space cluster, which includes ESA and RAL Space with STFC acting as the cluster champion. This cluster is supporting the growing UK space industry and is attracting an increasing number of international space organisations to Harwell including Aero Sekur, Magellium, VEGA and MDA Space and Robotics. The Catapult objective is to support UK industry and become a world class centre for the development and commercial exploitation of space and satellite-based products, services and applications. This will help to deliver the Government’s Space Innovation and Growth Strategy56, which aims to expand the UK space sector to £40 billion by 2030 and create 100,000 new jobs. STFC manages the ESA Business Incubation Centre Harwell and acts as the broker for the ESA Technology Transfer Network – we are the only organisation in Europe to lead both of these innovation activities. The ESA presence on site is expanding - it will be the new home for ESA’s Telecommunications Directorate alongside existing activities in climate services and robotics. This will create more than 100 new jobs at the Harwell Oxford Campus. Strengthening the Harwell space cluster This year the Technology Strategy Board, with support from STFC as its cluster champion, invested in innovative R&D projects in and around the Harwell Space Cluster, providing up to £1 million worth of grants to SMEs. The Harwell Space Launchpad competition aims to capitalise on the space cluster on site and will include business support and services. The competition is designed to enable companies to go further and/or faster towards commercial success, drawing investment and people into the earmarked areas, and encouraging networking to further strengthen the cluster. 16 STFC Impact Report 2013 Element Six open their Global Innovation Centre A division of De Beers, Element Six is an international company and manufacturer of synthetic diamond supermaterials that has opened the world’s largest and most sophisticated synthetic diamond R&D facility at Harwell Oxford. The £20 million Global Innovation Centre was oficially opened in 2013. Employing over 100 scientists and technologists, the new 5,000m² facility will develop a pipeline of innovative synthetic diamond products designed for the oil and gas drilling, precision machining and electronics markets. 4.2.3 Business incubation STFC has a track record of supporting early-stage businesses through its Innovation Technology Access57 Centres (I-TAC). For example, the I-TAC at Sci-Tech Daresbury offers access to the advanced facilities, technology and skills that STFC offer to industry, working with 56 companies from sectors including bioscience, energy, the environment and space. This successful model was extended to Harwell, where we have established a Micro and Nano Technology I-TAC. Impacts from both centres include the creation of 42 new jobs by companies accessing I-TAC‘s facilities, £12 million of investment and the generation of 11 new products, 9 patent applications and 2 licences since 2010. “We are pleased to have centred our R&D base at I-TAC. Moving here has given us access to a wide range of equipment and specialists, as well as put us into a number of innovation networks and fostered partnership working with the experts at STFC.” Stephen Falder, Byotrol Plc STFC manages both the ESA and CERN Business Incubation Centres (BICs) at our Harwell and Daresbury sites respectively. In addition to the STFC CERN BIC, STFC are currently coordinating HEPTech59 - the high-energy particle physics technology transfer network led by CERN. STFC is one of the 26 high-energy physics research institutions working together to exploit technologies developed for particle and nuclear physics. ESA Business Incubation Centre Harwell The ESA Business Incubation Centre Harwell60 offers a package of technical expertise and business support for up to 10 start-up businesses every year. By the start of 2012/13, it had enabled 22 innovative companies to translate space technologies and applications into viable and proitable businesses in non-space industries. For example, G2way61 was the irst alumnus to become independent in July 2012 after 18 months’ incubation. The company has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle for low-level earth observation which produces high-resolution Earth imagery. The vehicle can provide users with images of crops when cloud cover prevents traditional satellite images being taken, allowing commercial land management to be carried out when it was not previously possible. Entry by Jan Harris for the STFC Photowalk competition. A picture of the entrance to ISIS Target Station 2 at Harwell, Oxfordshire. STFC Impact Report 2013 17 Science and Technology Facilities Council 4.3 Knowledge Exchange & Commercialisation 4.3.1 Commercialisation from STFC grants STFC operates a number of schemes to support the commercialisation and exploitation of technology emerging from our grant-funded programmes in universities, our own laboratories and international subscriptions. In this year’s Impact Report we will focus on describing our Innovation Partnership Scheme, Follow-on Funding and how we work with the Technology Strategy Board to support commercialisation. Innovations Partnership Scheme The Innovations Partnership Scheme is designed to transfer technology and expertise developed through STFC funding to the marketplace in partnership with industry and other academic disciplines. STFC technology or expertise must be integral to the project and can be developed with STFC funding at UK higher education institutes, STFC laboratories, CERN and ESO. In 2012/13, we awarded funding to 11 projects, each with an industrial partner. STFC committed £1.7million, which leveraged a further £800K from the industrial partners. University College London spin-out, Zeeko62, have beneited from the support of this scheme. In collaboration with Glyndŵr University, they have been the irst collaboration in the world to gain acceptance by ESO for their polished mirrors designed to be deployed in the E-ELT63 - a signiicant achievement for the UK’s optical manufacturing industry. Follow on Funding – helping to create new companies Our Follow on Funding programme aims to provide inancial support at the very early stages of turning STFCfunded research into a commercial proposition. In addition to developing technology and expertise, the Follow on Fund enables researchers to undertake business critical activities such as market assessments. In recent years, spin-outs Cella Energy64 and Blackford Analysis65 have been created with the help of Follow on Funding. Anacail - making food safer Astrophysics research supported by STFC led to the concept of a plasma device that generates ozone inside sealed containers. Ozone is a powerful disinfectant and this device provides a new way to make food safer for consumption, and prolongs its shelf-life. The device can be used after packaging and aims to cut down on the 7 million tonnes of food waste that is created every year in the UK66. Followon Funding from STFC was granted to develop the device and engage with industrial partners to explore possible applications. A company called Anacail was spun-out of Glasgow University in 201167 to commercialise this product. Anacail is initially being targeted at the food packaging industry, worth £9 billion in 201068, and is set to undergo trials on production lines at several UK food processing plants69. Anacail have also been supported by EPSRC through their Collaborative Training Account fund. Colbalt Light systems, a STFC spin-out, has developed INSIGHT 100 which can identify materials inside opaque containers. (Credit: Colbalt Light Systems). 18 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council Partnering with the Technology Strategy Board Commercialisation statistics In addition to the Satellite Applications Catapult and Launchpads mentioned earlier, STFC is partnering with the Technology Strategy Board in their Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTN) and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP). STFC continues to sponsor activities with the KTNs in the promotion of STFC technologies and expertise to a wide SME audience. In the past year STFC has worked with the Electronics, Sensors and Photonics KTN70 to develop an industrial strategy for Boulby Underground Laboratory. We also work with the Technology Strategy Board and the Energy Generation and Supply KTN71 to help the STFC community provide solutions to the technical challenges faced by the energy sector, as part of our Challenge Led Applied Systems Programme72. A member of our staff has responsibility for the interaction with the Technology Strategy Board and acts as a focal point for developing longer term engagement across the breadth of both organisations. • A new spin-out, KEIT Ltd, was set up this year to apply a miniature spectrometer originally designed for use in space to a range of everyday terrestrial applications including surveying volcanic ash clouds and even giving farmers a health check on their crops. KEIT Ltd grew from the need for an extremely compact and robust but highly accurate spectrometer to measure gases in planetary atmospheres. The company has been awarded a place within the ESA BIC at Harwell Oxford. In 2012 a KTP project sponsored by STFC between the University of Strathclyde and Clyde Space Ltd was shortlisted for a top KTP award73. Funded by STFC, the successful partnership with Strathclyde helped the rapid growth of Clyde Space and they were awarded a contract by the UK Space Agency to build the UK’s irst CubeSat system74. Ukube-1 will launch in early 2014 and payloads include the irst GPS device aimed at measuring space weather and an experiment designed to engage school pupils in space and physics. Clyde Space are a market leader in small satellite systems and have recently announced record sales75. • Despite the dificult economic conditions, in 2013, 11 spin-out companies are trading and currently employ more than 120 people, 95% of whom are university graduates. Most of the companies are actively recruiting. • In 2012/13 8 new patent applications have been iled, bringing the total number of patent familiesxi to 65. • In 2012/13, 2 new royalty-bearing licences were created (bringing the total to 6), including the licence of the ISISstat, a new cryogen-free cryostat to Oxford Instruments. Some recent highlights from our spin-out companies include: • The Electrospinning Company Ltd STFC has also recently agreed to become a knowledge provider as part of the Technology Strategy Board’s Innovation Voucher Scheme giving opportunities for SMEs to access expertise at the Campuses and the UK ATC in Edinburgh. Formed in 2010, this STFC spin-out77 manufactures and sells scaffolds thinner than a human hair that support the growth of cells in the body. Its work therefore has applications in regenerative medicine and drug discovery78. In 2012, the company became part of a consortium of companies supported by the European Commission to fabricate ‘Re-Liver’79 a product which mimics a real liver. With over 10,000 people waiting for a liver transplant in the EU alone, this product will help in the development of drugs which target liver disease. 4.3.2 • Cobalt Light Systems Commercialisation of STFC Intellectual Property Our Innovation team are responsible for the protection and exploitation of STFC’s intellectual property portfolio. Since 2002, 18 spin-out companies have been set up, raising more than £56 million of third-party investment and creating over 150 jobs. Many of our spin-outs have been successful in winning funding from Technology Strategy Board as part of their early-stage development. Cobalt Light Systems80 has developed a number of products exploiting groundbreaking laser-based technology, which can identify materials inside opaque containers. The company has won orders to supply several hundreds of their INSIGHT100 liquid explosive detection systems to a large number of major European airports, including many of the main hub airports. Once deployed, these systems will enable security scanning under recent EU legislation, which requires the introduction of screening at EU airports, xi A patent family is a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention. It can take a number of years from irst iling to the patent being granted. STFC Impact Report 2013 19 Science and Technology Facilities Council by no later than 31st January 2014 of a limited category of liquids under a phased implementation. The irst phase is limited to the screening of transfer duty free carried in oficially sealed tamper-evident bags, and liquids carried for medical and essential dietary purposes. The recent purchases of the INSIGHT100 are in response to this EU legislation and introduce enhanced security. Current restrictions were introduced in 2006 following a foiled terrorist plot to smuggle viable improvised liquid explosive devices disguised in drinks bottles in hand luggage onto transatlantic lights leaving London bound for North America. Rainbow Seed Fund – 10 years of impact The Rainbow Seed Fund81 is a fund investing in the earliest stages of technology companies who have originated from publicly-funded research. STFC is a lead partner in this fund, along with BBSRC, NERC and the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, which is run by private sector fund manager Midven Ltd82. The fund is positioned at the start of the ‘Valley of Death’, the gap between start-up and the point at which a company can sustain itself through the sales of products and services. Starting in 2002, the fund has invested £7 million in 29 start-up companies including Cobalt Light Systems and the Electrospinning Company. The fund has also recently invested in a number of Campus companies such as Perfectus Biomed83,84,Cytox85 and Contego Fraud Solutions86. A recent economic and social assessment87 found that the fund has: • Leveraged over £150 million of private investment from just £7 million of its own investment. • Helped to create 172 high-value technology-related jobs. • Bolstered UK exports – between 75% - 100% of sales in Rainbow Seed Fund companies are overseas and exports to date are worth £10 million. Transferring knowledge and technology to industry STFC supports new product development and the growth of existing businesses through its licensing activities and funds STFC’s own researchers from our National Laboratories to transfer technology to industry. Examples include: • The X-Chip, which was designed for detector readout systems on STFC’s Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) at Daresbury Laboratory, has been licensed to the UK company Sens-Tech88. This chip is the key component in the X-ray detectors which the company sells into global security, medical, scientiic and industrial markets. • The development of new CMOSxiv sensor technology designed to detect electrons in microscopy applications. This project was initiated by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) to develop a replacement for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) ilm and included international academic and commercial partners. “The development of the CMOS camera has enabled all the users in LMB to be at the forefront of research into the structure of many biological systems, especially ribosomes and other large complexes, including membrane proteins and other molecular machines. It has also helped many other labs around the world to be very close behind, since it is now available commercially as a product that others can buy.” Richard Henderson, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology This technology is also being commercialised by American company FEI who launched their Falcon Camera Direct Electron Detector in 2009 using STFC sensors, with FEI stating: “We expect this new detector to revolutionize electron microscopy of biological structures.” 90 • Generated additional Gross Value Added (GVAxii ) of £43 millionxiii, a 5:1 return on investment. Future economic contributions of the portfolio are estimated to be £185 million in additional GVA in 2018, a return on investment of 33:1. xii GVA measures the contribution to the economy of each individual producer, industry or sector in the UK: Ofice for National Statistics. All GVA, ROI and employment igures stated include indirect effects in addition to direct numbers. xiv Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. xiii 20 STFC Impact Report 2013 Credit: Dreamstime. 4.4 Supporting UK business Industry engages with STFC at many levels in addition to our commercialisation activities described in the preceding sections. We offer our skills, products, services and facilities to UK industry. This can include engaging with key STFC staff who can act on a consultancy basis and the co-development of technology. Industries which beneit from our expertise include security, space, aerospace, automotive, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, environmental, software and manufacturing. STFC collaborates extensively with industry and our top industrial collaborators include Astrium, e2v, Intel, Selex Galileo, Siemens, Oxford Instruments, Unilever and IBM. Our recent study91 on the relationship with e2v and Oxford Instruments showed that these two companies beneited by an estimated £500 - 700 million through collaboration with us. Between 2010 and 2012, around 1600 different organisations utilised STFC facilities and services, of which 300 were commercial companies. In 2012/13 STFC’s external income was £62 million, of which 25% was direct from industry and 40% was foreign investment from non UK sources including the European Parliament, overseas Government Departments, universities and international business. 4.4.1 Industrial use of large-scale facilities Our synchrotron and neutron facilities form a critical part of R&D in industry for companies ranging in size from FTSE 100 multi-national organisations to SMEs. This year, our UK industrial customer base has increased from 60 to 89 proprietary commercial facility users from the health, car manufacturing, nuclear, chemical, oil, electronics, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In addition, 12 UK companies accessed STFC-funded ILL and ESRF facilities and it is estimated that 10 – 15% of all proposals to these facilities have industrial involvement. Celebrating the industrial impact of crystallography 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking work done by the Braggs, who pioneered X-ray crystallography, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1915. This was developed into tools which have revolutionised our understanding of the structure of matter. From DNA to contemporary research into cancer treatments, the Braggs’ work has fostered countless scientiic advances that impact our daily lives. STFC’s neutron and synchrotron facilities have played a key role in these advances. For example, macromolecular crystallography was pioneered at the STFC’s SRS facility, a technique which has been used to solve the structure of many proteins including the foot and mouth disease virus, HIV and the cold and bird lu viruses. Improved knowledge of these viruses has led to the development of groundbreaking treatments for them. This technique has become an essential tool for structural biology and the pharmaceutical industry; synchrotrons are widely used by the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs, an industry which contributes £8 billion to UK GDP and supports 67,000 jobs. Examples from Diamond Light Source are on the next page. STFC Impact Report 2013 21 Science and Technology Facilities Council Industrial drug development at the Diamond Light Source Industrial return from CERN subscription Heptares Therapeutics, a Hertfordshire-based biotechnology SME, solved the structure of a protein receptor in the brain which controls our response to stress. By using Diamond to visualise the stress protein receptor at the atomic level they were able to identify a ‘pocket’ in the structure for the irst time. Computer technology will allow scientists to design a drug to it precisely into this pocket, inhibiting the response of the ‘stress’ receptor. Their indings could pave the way for a transformation in drug treatments for depression, diabetes and osteoporosis. We have around 850 companies receiving CERN tender opportunities by sector. Our model of using a sector approach combined with retaining a procurement expert at CERN is now considered to be ‘best practice’ by CERN. Over the past 3 years STFC has doubled the UK industrial return from CERN and £20 million in industrial contracts and services were won in 2012 (bringing the total to £68 million since 2007). GlaxoSmithKline accessed the facility to characterise drug compounds in one of their key products. The facility was used to quantify product impurities, which was impossible using standard laboratory equipment. The experiment showed that the manufactured products met their speciication, leading to greater product understanding and control and giving the company conidence in the reproducibility of their manufacturing process. 4.4.2 Creating new business opportunities STFC helps UK companies take advantage of on-going opportunities to supply products and services to our national and international facilities. We provide advance notice of upcoming tenders, and give support through the tender process. Knowing the relevant buyer is the most direct route through this process so we have been working to build relationships between UK companies and key buyers through a range of activities. In 2012 UK industry won £43 million in contracts from our international subscriptions, a total of £150 million since 2005, and including £9 million of contracts for the E-ELT from ESO. This igure is predicted to increase as much as ten-fold before 2023, when E-ELT construction will be completed. Like our partner facilities, STFC also has on-going procurement requirements and in 2012/13 we placed £87 million in contracts with UK companies, over half of which went to 1,000 UK SMEs, with the remainder contracted to 220 large UK companies. 22 STFC Impact Report 2013 There are many beneits to companies who supply to CERN, not least the demanding technical capabilities the facilities require. A 2003 survey of CERN suppliers92 found that as a direct result of supplying to CERN, 38% of the survey respondents had developed new products or services; 13% started new R&D activity; 14% started a new business unit; 17% opened a new market; 42% increased their international exposure; and 44% indicated general technological learning. In addition, contracts from CERN leverage signiicant additional beneits for the UK economy; with every £1 that CERN pays to an industrial contractor, £3 worth of beneit is generated for the economy93 .This means the £68 million in contracts since 2007 has generated over £200 million for the UK economy. For example, Arcade UK Ltd94, a company specialising in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning have won £1 million worth of contracts at CERN in the last 2 years95. Mike West, Managing Director said: “The projects that we have contributed to at CERN over the last year have had a signiicant impact on our business – our work there has led to an expansion in our engineering team and we have seen a positive increase in this year’s turnover.” Sam Williams, Projects Director at Arcade UK Limited, pictured at the ALICE experiment - a CERN project which Arcade is involved in to improve ventilation. (Credit: CERN). STFC Impact Report 2013 23 5. World Class Skills 5.1 Introduction STFC’s ambition is to deliver the scientiic and technically skilled workforce that will sustain the UK as one of the world’s leading research nations, supporting the growth of a high-tech economy. Our skills activities are designed to meet a variety of different needs. We inspire and involve young people and the general public, capitalising on the inspiring nature of STFC’s science programmes to attract young people into STEM education and increase public awareness of the beneits of science. We provide highlyskilled people for the UK research base and the wider economy through post-graduate training, apprenticeships, by developing our own staff and by transferring skills into industry. This ensures we foster transferable skills for the beneit of the wider economy. 5.2 Inspiring and involving An important aspect of growing the UK’s knowledge economy is helping young people follow STEM careers, and we play a key role in enabling this to happen. Applications for physics and astronomy degree courses both saw a further 7%96 increase in 2012/13 (after increasing 25% over the previous 2 years) against an overall decline in applications of 13%97. This is widely attributed to the high proile of astronomy, physicists such as Professor Brian Cox98, and the prominence of CERN in the media. STFC has a strong and internationally respected programme of communications and outreach that attracts young people into science and helps improve the scientiic literacy of the general population. By 2012 we had around 58 million cumulative public contacts since 2009 through 3 STFC mass media initiatives alone (the Herschel Outreach Programme99, Dr Maggie Aderin’s Public Engagement Fellowship100 and the Explorers of the Universe exhibition101). We are greatly assisted by the wonder inspired by our science; for example when the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012, our story reached 26 million people in the UK and was mentioned every 1.1 seconds on Twitter. In 2012: • We awarded 27 Public Engagement Grants and Fellowships to the value of £520,000. • Up to 2 million people were reached in face-toface engagement through our public engagement programme, including over 346,000 schoolchildren and 17,500 science teachers. 24 STFC Impact Report 2013 • STFC Laboratories held over 200 public events and facilitated the visits of 135 teachers and 9,500 pupils from 305 schools to CERN. Some highlights from our public engagement programme this year include: • The Large Hadron Collider Roadshow102 toured the country with a life-size replica of the world’s biggest scientiic experiment. The exhibit was showcased in 16 venues and exhibited for 166 days, travelling over 4,500 miles, engaging over 615,000 people including politicians, industry and the general public and schools. • The STFC-led Dark Sky Discovery (DSD) network103 established 35 DSD sites – places identiied as the best local spots to stargaze, ranging from the Isles of Scilly to the highest pub in the country in the North Pennines. DSD sites bring astronomy to new places and new diverse audiences. The activities also reach large general audiences, with over 6,500 attending DSD stargazing events which were viewed by 3 million people in the BBC Stargazing LIVE broadcasts this year. Explore your Universe – atoms to astrophysics Explore Your Universe104 is a national strategic partnership between the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) and STFC with the vision of inspiring excitement around the physical sciences through sharing STFC stories and technologies. The programme consists of a series activities and events, all focused on STFC science. From February to the end of September 2013, the programme had reached over 98,000 people. This project is being professionally assessed by Kings College London and the evaluation will examine the impact on over 4,500 students and 200 families at 10 centres across Britain, making it the largest study of its kind in the UK. Interim evaluation data is available from the irst 3 months of the programme and is detailed in Appendix 3. These interim results showed that 44% of 10-13 year old students and 39% of 14-16 year old students said that they were more interested in considering a career in science after attending Explore your Universe activities. The full evaluation will be reported in next year’s Impact Report. Science and Technology Facilities Council 5.3 Developing skills for the UK research base STFC’s university groups are also fundamental to delivering our skills training. Our research areas attract 90% of undergraduates who study physics105, and our world class researchers train our PhD students in high-end scientiic, analytic and technical skills. We fund PhD studentships, Ernest Rutherford Fellowships and research grants and Studentship Enhancement Programme awards. In addition, STFC funds ive CASE studentships each year, which are designed to promote knowledge exchange through collaboration between universities and industry with students spending 3 months in the industrial organisation. Industrial partners involved in STFC CASE studentships over the last 10 years include Selex Galileo, e2v, Dell and AWE. In 2012/13 STFC: • Invested £9 million in postgraduate training and fellowships in particle physics, nuclear physics and astronomy, including 220 new PhD studentships, bringing the cohort to 782. • Provided over 16,800 training days to postgraduate students (a 30% increase from last year), funded by other Research Councils, at our facilities and departments across a range of disciplines. 1638 PhD students (an increase of 10%) used our UK facilities, 36% of the total number of users. As noted by the Wakeham Review106, a physics PhD equips students for a range of careers requiring high-level skills; and the low of postgraduates into industry is one of the most important elements for transferring advanced skills into the broader economy. Around half our PhDs continue in research, sustaining the bedrock of the UK’s scientiic excellence. The remainder, who are much valued for their numerical, problem-solving and project-management skills, choose equally important industrial, commercial or Government careers. Students taking part in the ‘Explore your Universe’ programme, a joint programme between STFC and the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres. Ernest Rutherford Fellowships STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowships are prestigious awards aimed at talented researchers with 5 years’ research experience. They are highly competitive: STFC currently awards 12 new fellowships each year and in the 2012/13 round there were 148 applications – a success rate of 8%. One of the main objectives of the scheme is to attract, retain and develop the next generation of research leaders for the UK. Their 5 year duration, coupled with the opportunity to seek additional Ernest Rutherford grant funding, is designed to make the scheme attractive to the best young researchers around the world. Our previous Advanced Fellows reported around 30 publications arising from their fellowship – 6 per year. This compares with around 2.5 per year across the community as a wholexv. 80% of Fellows from 2003 to 2011 moved straight from their Fellowship into permanent academic posts (77% in the UK); and many of these are now in senior leadership positions in UK physics departments. xv Derived from the total number of refereed publications in astronomy, particle physics and nuclear physics provided to STFC by Evidence Ltd divided by the size of the academic population used in the studentship algorithm. STFC Impact Report 2013 25 Science and Technology Facilities Council 5.4 Developing skills for the wider economy 5.4.1 School leavers and college students We undertake several activities and schemes which support school leavers, those at college or those in their irst degree. Activities at our national laboratories include apprenticeships, vacation students, sandwich students and graduate placements. STFC supports apprenticeships and traineeships at CERN and ESRF and also contributes to National Space Academy courses. Work experience placements at our national laboratories beneit more than 120 young people per annum. 5.4.2 Developing our people STFC employs nearly 1,700 people, many of whom are highly-skilled scientists, technicians and engineers. STFC is a focal point for the UK’s national capability in a number of areas, such as microelectronics, high performance computing and research techniques such as neutron and X-ray scattering. We provide training to develop the skills of our own staff, with each staff member receiving an average of 5 days’ training per annum. STFC’s commitment to staff development has been recognised by the award of the Investors in People Silver Standard in 2011 and by the Institute of Physics’ Best Practice in Professional Development award in 2012. Apprentice Training Scheme We currently host 24 apprentices and our scheme has been running for 20 years. Each apprenticeship offers 4 years paid training in electronic, electrical and mechanical engineering. 70% of the apprentices that have been taken on are still working at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. This year the Science Minister David Willetts launched107 the irst ever Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering108 with the aim of providing a national pathway for 250 apprentices by 2015. These new apprenticeships are intended to contribute to UK space industry by supplying advanced skills and knowledge to drive economic growth. International standing and recognition Amongst STFC’s staff and the academics we support in universities are many individuals considered to be world-leaders in their respective ields. Around 100 staff members hold honorary academic positions and joint appointments with universities or companies, both within the UK and internationally. Some 359 staff received signiicant awards or recognition in 2012/13, such as research prizes, representation on international scientiic committees and membership of journal editorial boards. Members of STFC’s wider community are also frequently recognised for their expertise: • Professor Peter Higgs, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013: “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was conirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.” This award is one of the highest honours a scientist can receive. He was also was made a Companion of Honour in the New Year Honours list 2013. This award is given for work of national importance and is limited to 65 people at any one time. Nobel Prize Medal. 26 STFC Impact Report 2013 • Professor Brian Kobilka and Professor Robert Lefkowitz were awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. They used the STFC-supported ESRF to solve an important G Protein Coupled receptor (GPCR) structure. GPCRs are found on cell membranes throughout the body and can cause wide-ranging and important physiological effects. These include the retina’s response to light, the nose’s sense of smell and the strength of a heartbeat. Science and Technology Facilities Council 5.4.3 Developing industrial skills STFC works extensively with industry, both supplying skilled staff and university researchers who transfer into industry through our employment and training programmes, and transferring knowledge and skills to industry through our many collaboration activities. Our expenditure on activities that aim to improve knowledge transfer, business or industrial skills is approximately £2.5 million per year. Our Campuses are already making substantial contributions to skills development activities, with various training activities offered. For example software courses at the Hartree Centre, with around 1,200 people expected to beneit each year. Working with Campus partners and organisations such as the Growth Accelerator109, we deliver investment readiness programmes, mentoring and skills training on key business issues. This support forms a key part of the delivery of the Technology Strategy Board’s Launchpads already mentioned in this report. We also offer a comprehensive technical support package to eligible Campus companies to provide access to the skills and technologies that will improve product or service development. The following examples demonstrate the different ways in which we support industrial skills development: Enterprise Fellowship – Training Entrepreneurs To support the growth of a high-technology UK economy through commercialisation of STFC-funded science and technologies, STFC funds and helps to manage an Enterprise Fellowship scheme in collaboration with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and BBSRC. This scheme offers researchers the opportunity to acquire the skills to spin-out a business from their academic institution. The objective of the Fellowship is the completion of an ‘investor ready’ business plan, incorporation of a new spin-out company and seed funding. So far we have awarded 13 fellowships at a cost of £80,000 each. This year saw Puridify110 become the 10th spin-out from STFCsponsored RSE Enterprise Fellowships since 2000. The new company offers ‘puriication solutions for biotherapeutic manufacturing’. Past examples of successful spin-outs supported in this way include iKinema111 , Cella Energy 112 and Symetrica113. Microelectronics support for Europe’s leading companies STFC provides the design tools for the £23 billion UK114 microelectronics sector. The global microelectronics industry represents 1% of the world’s GDP, underpinning virtually every single industrial sector either directly or indirectly115. STFC’s Microelectronics Support Centre partners with 20 of the world’s leading microelectronics system designers and 11 leading design institutes. It provides over 650 universities and institutes across Europe, including 80 in the UK, with world-leading microelectronics design tools. This work has generated revenue for STFC in excess of £75 million in the last 25 years with over 85% coming from outside the UK. More than 250,000 students and academics have directly beneited. STFC has provided this vital resource and infrastructure to universities and research institutes for over 25 years and most of the microelectronics engineers graduating in Europe have been trained on STFC’s supplied and supported design tools. “STFC’s continuous support of the design activities in UK universities has formed a vital part of the supply chain of graduates with practical design experience to UK industry.” Paul Greenield, CEO Aspex Semiconductor Ltd Providing training and support vital for business development Rapiscan Systems116, a provider of security monitoring equipment for airports and other ports of entry, has developed the next generation of X-ray scanning technology with support and training from STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory. The company was based at STFC for over 2 years and their staff were trained by, and worked closely alongside, STFC staff. This increased the company’s knowledge base and enabled them to overcome key technical challenges. STFC also provided onsite resources, equipment and test facilities that Rapiscan needed to test and install their irst airport installed baggage scanning system. Rapiscan is now rapidly growing and has recently set up a major manufacturing base in the UK. Its product is certiied for use in all European Airports and their irst order, from Manchester Airport, is worth £20 million. “The skills and technology that we developed during our time at Daresbury Laboratory made a major impact on our company at a critical time. Without it, we would not have attracted any further investment, and in all likelihood we would have had to dissolve as a company.” Dr. Ed Morton, Technical Director of Rapiscan Systems STFC Impact Report 2013 27 6. Methodological developments and future challenges By its nature, relatively short-term performance monitoring cannot be expected to provide a full picture of the broader economic societal beneits of STFC research, facilities and Campuses. Our evaluation programme includes impact studies, case study evaluations, bibliometric studies, and the development of shorter-term metrics. This year we have been strengthening our impact evaluation team and now have a team of three people with the remit to coordinate impact evaluation activities across the whole of STFC’s programmes. Recent evaluations • We have recently published case studies on our role in the development of MRI scanners118 and satellite navigation119 and a brochure which outlines the impact of materials research120 in our neutron facilities. • We have also worked with the Institute of Physics and EPSRC to develop the ‘Physics: transforming lives’121 publication which outlines the economic and social beneits of physics research. • We have continued to develop our case studies on the impact of our collaboration with e2v and Oxford Instruments. • STFC has supported BIS in the management of two evaluation projects which investigate the impact of large-scale facilities. The irst of these ‘Big Science and 28 STFC Impact Report 2013 Innovation’ was published this year122. As a result of the study recommendations, we will be undertaking a lifetime study on the impact of our ISIS facility using methodologies suggested in the report. • We have supported the Royal Astronomical Society in their publication on the impact of astronomy ‘Astronomy: Beyond the stars’ and our partner, the ESRF, also published a report on the impact of the ESRF facility123. • We have worked with RCUK and the other Research Councils to develop timelines on the eight great technologies124, leading the ‘Satellites and commercial applications space’ timeline and contributing to the other seven. • We have also contributed to the Gateway to Research system by validating and submitting over 50,000 outputs from our ResearchFish system. • Finally, we have started to undertake focused activities to communicate impact and its evaluation to our research communities. The irst of these was an impact workshop in the summer at the International Conference of Neutron Scattering125 which was well received. We also targeted our Public Engagement Symposium in late 2013. Science and Technology Facilities Council On-going evaluations include: Benchmarking the quality and impact of UK physics research With ESPRC and the Institute of Physics, we commissioned a metrics-based study to evaluate the national and international level and impact of UK physics research and its sub-areas. Using a combination of bibliometric analyses and case-studies the report will provide information on the UK’s scientiic performance and the nature and extent of international and industrial collaboration. Bibliometric data from this study is included in Appendix 1. STFC ResearchFish We completed analysis of the second ResearchFish data collection in spring 2013, gathering valuable information which is enhancing our reports and case studies. An analysis of our publication data is given in Appendix 2. The level of reporting will continue to improve as we gather more information in future years. During the course of the data submission period for research grants, we collected over 25,000 unique outputs, across 7 categoriesxvi. Work is also under way to gather outputs arising from use of the large UK facilities using this methodology and we are piloting the scheme with ISIS and the Central Laser Facility. Widening our Knowledge Exchange engagement We have completed a study which maps research grants to knowledge exchange awards in order to identify STFC-funded research groups that have not received or applied for innovation funding. This study resulted in a prioritised list of 12 university groups which we are visiting to develop ideas for generating impact and increase knowledge of our innovation and Knowledge Exchange schemes. It is anticipated that this activity will lead to engagement from a wider research base and this will be monitored and reported in 2014/15. We have plans to monitor and track signiicant innovation project investments starting next year to understand the full impact of these investments. Future programme and challenges In the next year we will continue with the evaluations already mentioned, start case studies on industrial collaboration with two further companies and publish reports on the impact of our space and big data programmes which we have included in this report. We will also investigate options for developing metrics for our Campuses. xvi The sections focus on areas of importance to demonstrate impact; publications, collaborations, further funding, staff development and next destinations, technology development, IP and licensing, spin-outs, measures of esteem, public engagement, and use of facilities. STFC Impact Report 2013 29 7. Appendices Appendix 1 - STFC publication statistics We use the ‘Average of Relative Citations’ (ARC) to calculate citation impact. The ARC is an indicator of the scientiic impact of papers produced by STFC relative to the world average. The number of citations received by each publication is counted for the year in which it was published and the two subsequent years. For example, for papers published in 2008, citations received in the 2008–2010 period are counted. To account for different citation patterns across ields of science and for differences in the age of publications, each publication’s citation count is divided by the average citation count of all publications from the same year in the same ield to obtain a Relative Citation count. The ARC of STFC is then the average of our Relative Citations. An ARC value above 1 means that a given entity is cited more frequently than the world average, while a value below 1 means the reverse. A detailed breakdown of the STFC relevant sub-ields of physics showing publication statistics and citation impact is given on the following pages. Astronomy Year No. publications & world ranking Citation impact & world ranking 2008 2075, 2nd 1.48, 2nd 2009 2256, 2nd 1.75, 1st 2010 2411, 2nd 1.65, 1st 2011 2513, 2nd 1.26, 3rd Our performance compared to the leading scientiic nations in this area can be illustrated by the following graph: The graph clearly shows that the UK is one of the best countries in the world in astronomy citation impact. In 2011 we came a close third behind the USA and Germany, who were joint irst. On average between 2008 and 2011 the UK outperformed the rest of the world in astronomy citation impact. The graph also shows a relative drop by the top performing countries in 2011 compared to previous years. This may indicate the increasing prevalence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations in astronomy research. 30 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council Particle Physics Year No. publications & world ranking Citation impact & world ranking 2008 1127, 4th 1.55, 1st 2009 1047, 3rd 1.49, 1st 2010 1030, 4th 1.55, 1st 2011 1231, 6th 1.43, 1st Our performance compared to the leading scientiic nations in this area can be illustrated by the following graph: The graph clearly shows that the UK is the best country in the world in particle physics citation impact and has held this position from 2008 to 2011. STFC Impact Report 2013 31 Science and Technology Facilities Council Nuclear Physics Year No. publications & world ranking Citation impact & world ranking 2008 372, 7th 1.51, 2nd 2009 347, 7th 1.55, 2nd 2010 347, 7th 1.62, 2nd 2011 296, 7th 1.72, 2nd Our performance compared to the leading scientiic nations in this area can be illustrated by the following graph: The graph clearly shows that the UK is one of the best countries in the world in nuclear physics citation impact. We have been consistently 2nd in the world and have showed a year-on-year improvement in citation impact for the past 4 years. When compared against the BRIC nations, the UK ranked as follows in 2011: • Astronomy: Number of publications – 1st; citation impact – 1st • Particle Physics: Number of publications – 5th; citation impact – 1st • Nuclear Physics: Number of publications – 4th; citation impact - 2nd 32 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council Appendix 2 - STFC publications compared to UK physical sciences STFC commissioned an analysis of publications submitted to the ResearchFish on-line outputs system. This proile shows that between 2003 and 2012, STFC publications performed better than UK physical sciences as a whole. The proile curve for STFC (orange curve) is clearly to the right of that for UK Physical Science research (blue curve), indicating more well-cited papers: • 14.1% of STFC papers published between 2003 and 2012 remained uncited at the end of 2012, compared to 15.5% of all UK Physical Science research. • 50.6% had a citation impact of at least world average at the end of 2012, compared to 41.2% of UK Physical Science research. • 10.9% of STFC papers had a citation impact of at least 4 times the world average, compared to 7.7% of UK Physical Science research. The data in Appendices 1 and 2 indicate that STFC is succeeding in its ambition to deliver world class research and sustain scientiic excellence and leadership. STFC Impact Report 2013 33 Science and Technology Facilities Council Appendix 3 - Interim evaluation results for Explore your Universe Explore Your Universe is a national strategic partnership between the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) with the vision of inspiring a sense of excitement around the physical sciences through sharing the stories and technologies of STFC. After a 1-2 hour intervention for 14-16 year old students: The evaluation programme is being undertaken by academics at King’s College London, led by Professor Justin Dillon. Overall the evaluation will assess the impact on over 4,500 students and 200 families at 10 centres across the UK making it the largest study of its kind in the UK. (Based on 409 responses from participants at 7 centres) The interim evaluation data is available from the irst 3 months of the programme and showed the following: After a one hour intervention for 10-13 year old school students: • 61% said that the experience would help them in school science; • 53% said that they were more interested in studying science; • 44% said that they were more interested in considering a career in science. (Based on 642 responses from participants at 7 centres) 34 STFC Impact Report 2013 • 66% believed that the experience would help them in their school science; • 46% were more interested in studying science; • 39% were more likely to consider a career in science. By Sept 30 2013 the Explore Your Universe network has collectively reached 98,195 people, including 31,397 people who have had the opportunity to meet scientists and engineers face-to-face through ‘meet the expert’ sessions, 10,243 school students aged 10-16, and 52,303 children and adults visiting in family groups. Overall, we expect 115,000 individuals to have taken part in Explore Your Universe workshops and shows by the end of the project. By the end of the project we forecast to have reached 115,000 individuals. Science and Technology Facilities Council Appendix 4 - STFC statistics Total Funds Available Budget Allocation Total Leverage of which Private of which from other Research Councils of which from other source of which Private of which Other Research Councils of which Other Total Expenditure of which Responsive Mode Grant of which Postgraduate Awards of which Other components of which Responsive Mode Grant of which Postgraduate Awards of which Other components Human Capital Principal Investigators Research Leaders in Sponsored Institutes Research Fellowships Knowledge Generation Number of Grants assessed for reporting Refereed Publications Human Capital Number of PhD Students Supported Finishing Rates Rolling cohort of PhDs Commercialisation Activities New patent family applications iled** Total number of patents granted worldwide*** Spin-outs/new businesses created Licences Income from IP activity Human Capital First destination after PhD Of which University Of which Wider Public Sector Of which Third Sector Of which Private Sector Of which Unknown or Other Of which Unemployed Facility usage Station Days Unique Users Experiments UNITS £mil £mil £mil £mil £mil £mil % % % £mil £mil £mil £mil % % % 2008/09 691 603 89 9 14 66 1% 2% 9% 691 116 23 552 17% 3% 80% 2009/10 705 607 98 35 19 44 5% 3% 7% 705 120 25 530 18% 4% 78% 2010/11 639 583 56 32 14 10 6% 2% 1% 639 90 26 523 14% 4% 82% 2011/12 601 536 65 39 14 12 6% 2% 1% 601 99 24 478 16% 4% 80% 2012/13 571 508 63 15 11 37 3% 2% 7% 571 79 23 469 14% 4% 82% # # # 365 NA 19 345 NA 12 360 NA 11 266 NA 13 226 NA 12 # # 294 4281 189 4438 280 4654 229 4966 358 * # % # 258 95% 235 85% 235 91% 220 92% 912 220 93% 782 # 7 4 4 4 8 # # # £mil 5 6 3 0.23 4 3 1 0.11 4 2 3 0.09 26 0 2 0.104 23 1 2 0.07 % % % % % % 50% 15% 9% 26% 0 0 52% 6% 7% 35% 0 0 45% 7% 13% 35% 0 0 47% 5% 15% 33% 0 0 42% 8% 17% 33% 0 0 # # # x x x x x x 9297 2803 1584 11349 3675 2072 6724 4254 2376 * Bibliometric data for 2012/13 will be reported in next year’s report. ** A patent family is a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention. It can take a number of years from irst iling to the patent being granted. *** Patents can be awarded in different countries; this number does not represent the number of inventions, but the number of patents held across all countries and across all inventions. X Historical data unavailable due to changes in method of data collection. STFC Impact Report 2013 35 Science and Technology Facilities Council Appendix 5 - Glossary ALMA Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array BBSRC Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council BIC Business Incubation Centre E-ELT European Extremely Large Telescope EPSRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council ESA European Space Agency ESO European Southern Observatory ESRF European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ILL Institut Laue-Langevin IoP Institute of Physics I-TAC Innovation Technology Access Centre JCMT James Clerk Maxwell Telescope KMOS K-band Multi-Object Spectrograph LHC Large Hadron Collider MIRI Mid-Infrared Instrument MRC Medical Research Council MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NERC Natural Environment Research Council RAL Rutherford Appleton Laboratory SKA Square Kilometre Array STFC Science and Technology Facilities Council UKATC UK Astronomy Technology Centre UKSA UK Space Agency 36 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council Appendix 6 - References 1 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/resources/pdf/STFCCS2010.pdf Oct 2013 2 “Performance of the UK in Physics Research: National and International Perspectives”, Science-Metrix Inc, 2013, carried out on behalf of STFC, EPSRC and IoP 3 http://biosync.sbkb.org/stats.do?stats_sec=RGNL&stats_focus_lvl=RGNL&stats_region=European Sep 2013 4 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/ukatc/35339.aspx Nov 2013 5 http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt/ Nov 2013 6 The “Mid-Infrared Instrument”, http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/miri.html Nov 2013 7 http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/index.html Nov 2013 8 The “Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array”, http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma.html Nov 2013 9 http://www.skatelescope.org/ Nov 2013 10 http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/e-elt/ Nov 2013 11 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/2895.aspx Nov 2013 12 T.J.D. 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http://www.stfc.ac.uk/e-Science/news+and+events/39400.aspx Oct 2013 36 http://www.jasmin.ac.uk/ Dec 2013 37 https://sa.catapult.org.uk/ Dec 2013 38 https://sa.catapult.org.uk/climate-and-environmental-monitoring-from-space/ Dec 2013 39 http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0m2.pdf Dec 2013 40 http://www.alliancepermanentaccess.org/index.php/consultancy-and-services/peer-review-and-3rd-party-certiication-ofrepositories/audit-and-certiication/ Dec 2013 41 http://www.alliancepermanentaccess.org Dec 2013 42 http://www.green500.org/news/green500-list-november-2013 Dec 2013 43 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/RALSpace/resources/PDF/03_50.pdf Oct 2013 44 http://www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency/missions/meteosat-second-generation-msg-europes-largest-weather-satellite Oct 2013 45 “The economic impact of physics research in the UK: Satellite Navigation Case Study” (STFC, 2012) http://www.stfc.ac.uk/resources/PDF/OE%20Satellite%20Navigation%20Case%20Study.pdf Oct 2013 46 https://www.stfc.ac.uk/Resources/pdf/Fascination_Version_11_web.pdf page 10, Nov 2013 47 Jawed Khan, Peter Greene, Kah Wei Hoo, Ofice for National Statistics, “Monetary Valuation of UK Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Reserves” (background notes, 6), (2012) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_315074.pdf Sep 2013 48 http://www.sci-techdaresbury.com/ Sep 2013 49 ‘UK Innovation Survey 2009’, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Dec 2010 50 https://www.innovateuk.org/-/materials-manufacturing-north-west-launchpad Oct 2013 51 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/hartree/default.aspx Sep 2013 52 International Data Corporation, 2010, http://www.hpcuserforum.com/EU/downloads/SR03S10.15.2010.pdf Dec 2013 53 http://www.harwelloxford.com/ Oct 2013 54 http://www.sciencevale.com/ Sep 2013 55 https://sa.catapult.org.uk/ Oct 2013 56 http://www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency/what-we-do/space-and-the-growth-agenda/uk-capabilities-for-overseas-markets/thespace-innovation-and-growth-strategy Sep 2013 57 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/2590.aspx Oct 2013 58 http://www.stfc-cern-bic.org.uk/default.aspx Oct 2013 59 http://ttn.extra.cea.fr/ Oct 2013 60 http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Business_Incubation/ESA_Business_Incubation_Centres 8 Oct 2013 61 http://www.g2way.com/ Sep 2013 62 http://www.zeeko.co.uk/site/tiki-index.php?page=HomePagePublic Oct 2013 63 http://www.stfc.ac.uk/2917.aspx Oct 2013 64 http://www.cellaenergy.com/ Oct 2013 65 http://blackfordanalysis.com/ Oct 2013 66 http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/522988-Plasma_increases_shelf_life_.php Dec 2013 67 http://www.anacail.com/ Sep 2013 38 STFC Impact Report 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council 68 United Kingdom Packaging Industry Forecast, Packaging Gateway, http://www.packaging-gateway.com/features/featureunitedkingdom-packaging-industry-forecast-until-2015/ Dec 2013 69 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-21390274 Sep 201 70 https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/espktn Nov 2013 71 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