Connect: Issue 58

January 2008 Issue 58

Keeping you in touch with opportunities from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

www.epsrc.ac.uk

Knowledge Transfer Challenge 2007 Rewarding impact EPSRC’S Knowledge Transfer Challenge celebrates and rewards the achievements of UK universities in utilising their research for social and economic benefit. The University of Sheffield won this year’s top prize of £500,000 and a CASE PhD studentship, for a highly innovative idea to actively promote the technology available at their Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre using a mobile demonstrator.

Following an open competition, the five universities who made it to the final were: • Aston University: a proposal to create a centre for two-way exchange between the University and industry • University of Nottingham: supporting three key areas of research with significant knowledge transfer potential • University of Reading: identifying three common barriers to knowledge transfer and addressing them in innovative ways • University of Sheffield: taking the technology to those who need it using a demonstrator HGV • University of Surrey: enhancing opportunities in water research and the transfer of knowledge to save lives With almost a million pounds in prizes at stake the competitors had to convince the judging panel, chaired by John Armitt (also Chairman of EPSRC), that they were offering the best investment opportunity. The finalists already had a strong record in knowledge transfer activity, transforming their research into successful business ventures. But they also had to show the panel that they have innovative ideas for undertaking future knowledge transfer activity.

The award ceremony was well attended by guests from universities, business and government. Events got underway with an opening address by EPSRC Chief Executive Professor David Delpy and a speech by Professor John Perkins (who represented last year’s winner, the University of Manchester).

Presenting the awards and speaking to the assembled guests, Minister for Science and Innovation Ian Pearson congratulated the University of Sheffield as well as the four runners up and all participating universities. The Minister said: “Taking exciting research from the university laboratory to the commercial sector is vital to ensuring the UK’s economy continues to be innovative and globally competitive. The Government is strongly committed to supporting universities in commercialising research and we recently announced a doubling of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships to encourage this. I applaud the innovative approach taken by the finalists, and all competing universities.”

Contact: Robert Heathman, robert.heathman@epsrc.ac.uk Nathan Holford, nathan.holford@epsrc.ac.uk

Inside the quality of reviews 2 Improving

Getting more useful comments

3 And the winner is…

Public engagement success

3 Calls

Forthcoming EPSRC funding opportunities

4 UK National Grid Service

Access to computational resources

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Improving the quality of reviews Written comments take precedence FULL electronic peer review was introduced by EPSRC in May 2007, bringing new functionality to peer reviewers, applicants and Research Organisations. Enhancements through Je-S include access to reviewers’ comments for investigators and the availability of full documentation for reviewers online. These changes should ensure that applicants and reviewers can complete their tasks with the minimum of fuss which, in turn, should help to ensure that peer review flows more smoothly.

Although the Je-S interface is very much improved, every now and then a reviewer submits an assessment which is not usable.

This happens in less than 1% of cases, but as delays in receiving usable comments can extend the time it takes to process applications we would like to reduce them as much as possible.

Most commonly, comments are judged to be unusable because they are too sparse, for instance giving one-word answers, or too bland, failing to justify criticisms or praise. Such reviews do not give prioritisation panels enough evidence on which to base a decision, and in the past have been excluded from the process.

On their own, the tick-box ratings in a sparse or poorly justified review are not particularly useful. Written comments are far more valuable, and are given a much greater weight in panel deliberations.

From now on, rather than simply not using them at all, reviews which do not contain sufficient commentary will be returned to reviewers through Je-S, along with some explanation of where extra comment is required.

This doesn’t mean that short answers are not acceptable, or that every section in a review should be completed to the same level of detail. We will be looking at reviews as a whole when deciding whether they are useful. By applying our understanding of the requirements that panels have in making decisions we hope to be able to improve the quality of peer review.

Contact: Douglas Niven, douglas.niven@epsrc.ac.uk

UK-China Workshop on Sustainable Power Generation and Supply

Innovation and Knowledge Centres

Supporting international collaboration

New opportunities for commercialisation

RESEARCH is international and many of the challenges that we face are global. Our priority as a national agency is engineering and physical sciences research, training and economic impact in the UK, but we support international collaboration as a key part of this. We want to make it as easy as possible for the best researchers to work with each other, no matter where they are.

Our INTERACT scheme provides funding for setting up new collaborations with researchers in China, India or Japan. Using its funding, the UK-China Network on Clean Energy Research and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), China, organised the UK-China Workshop on Sustainable Power Generation and Supply, held in Beijing from the 16-18 October 2007.

In the opening session, EPRI’s Chief Engineer Professor Xiaoxin Zhou gave a speech on ‘Chinese power industry and development’. EPSRC Energy Senior Research Fellow Professor Nigel Brandon from Imperial College delivered a complementary presentation on the UK Research Councils’ Energy Programme. Eleven speakers from the UK SUPERGEN consortia and Chinese power companies and institutions presented invited technical lectures on five topics: solar power, wind generation, network technology, clean power generation and energy storage. In the final session, Dr Carol Rennie from the RCUK office in China and Professor Feili Huang from the Natural Science Foundation of China, gave talks on collaborative funding opportunities in the UK and China.

IN PARTNERSHIP with the Technology Strategy Board and BBSRC, EPSRC is seeking bids from leading universities who wish to host Innovation and Knowledge Centres (IKCs) to promote early commercialisation of world class research. Two new IKCs will combine within a single centre the best research with the best business development, market analysis and commercialisation skills.

Each IKC will receive financial support of about £9.5m over five years, conditional on upfront commitment from business partners.

Only one bid per institution is allowed, and applications will be coordinated by the institutions themselves. To help this process, call documents have only been made available to university Vice Chancellors or equivalents, who will be responsible for dissemination as appropriate.

Email alerts Over 130 people attended the workshop, and all technical lectures have been published in a special issue of the Chinese journal, Power Network Technology. The next INTERACT call will be in spring/summer 2008 and will focus on collaborations with one of our target countries in research areas which are strategically important to the UK. Further details will be published on the 'Calls for Proposals' pages of our website.

Contact: Edward Clarke, edward.clarke@epsrc.ac.uk

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Register to receive latest funding opportunities You can now register on our website to receive a weekly alert containing details of our latest calls for proposals. Visit out website and register under the quick links section on the right hand side of the home page: www.epsrc.ac.uk

Connect January 2008 Issue 58

Photograph by Perry Hastings

And the winner is…

Prestigious award for EPSRC Public Engagement grantholder THE annual Joshua Phillips Award for Innovation in Science Engagement (Josh Award) for 2007 has been won by Dr Chris Smith. Chris is Principal Investigator on an EPSRC Public Engagement award titled 'The Naked Scientists – an interactive platform for Public Engagement with science'.

‘The Naked Scientists’ is the UK’s only live weekly science radio talk show. It is broadcast on BBC local radio stations across the east of England and syndicated internationally. The show is also available as a podcast, which has become one of the world’s most downloaded science programmes.

Speaking after the ceremony, at which he received a cash prize of £1000 and a trophy, Chris said: “I praise the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry for their foresight in launching this award.

Prizes like the Josh Award are absolutely critical for helping people to

establish a career in science communication because they give credibility and recognition to a currently under recognised discipline. I am also very grateful to the organisations that support ‘The Naked Scientists’, including EPSRC, the Wellcome Trust and UKFast.”

The award is open to anyone involved in making science interesting and relevant to a mainstream audience. It aims to encourage science communicators in the early stages of their careers to come up with creative ideas which inspire people of all ages about science.

Contact: Victoria Bradley, victoria.bradley@epsrc.ac.uk Further information: www.mosi.org.uk

Research users as reviewers

Calls Challenging Engineering – Call for Outline Applications Closing date: 5 March 2008 Call for outline proposals for funding to support future engineering research leaders from an early stage of their careers.

Contact: Katie Finch, katie.finch@epsrc.ac.uk

When, why and how ONE of the key stages in EPSRC peer review is the selection of reviewers. All proposals are sent to at least one person nominated by applicants themselves, with the remainder being selected by EPSRC staff.

We use evidence from several sources to identify appropriate reviewers.

The overriding criterion in their selection is that they must have technical expertise which matches the proposal. When this criterion is met, other factors come into play.

In some areas of research the pool of potential reviewers is defined and restricted by the subject matter. For instance, it would not really be appropriate or even possible to send a proposal to study algebraic geometry to an industrial reviewer, as expertise in that area resides (for now at least) exclusively in universities. In other areas the distinction is not quite as clear, and in some areas there is either no distinction at all or even a pull towards users of research when it comes to defining those suited to review.

As might be expected, the more that a proposal addresses industrial interests the more likely it is that it will be sent to one or more reviewers from the user community. Cues for this selection come from many places, including the applicant’s own selection of reviewers: if some or all of these are based in industry then it suggests that an industrial reviewer might be an appropriate choice. Similarly, the beneficiaries of a project are useful in determining the spread of reviewer backgrounds: if a proposal claims to be relevant to the needs of industry, then it’s reasonable to send it to someone with that background to judge the claim. Finally, the presence of an industrial collaborator can indicate that the research proposed is not of purely academic interest.

We are looking for a sensible balance of opinion from reviewers rather than a black-and-white classification of proposals as either pure or applied. Commonly, no more than one or two reviewers on any proposal come from outside the academic community, and the evidence used to determine the spread comes primarily from the contents of a proposal.

The broad nature of a proposal’s reviewers is in the hands of applicants; only the detail is in the hands of EPSRC.

Focussed-Ion-Beam Nanofabrication – Open Call for Access Closing date: 1 November 2008 Researchers from UK higher education institutions can apply for free access to use the focussed ion-beam nanofabrication facilities at the London Centre for Nanotechnology.

Contact: Dr Paul Warburton, p.warburton@ee.ucl.ac.uk New Materials Research Equipment Services – Open Call for Access Closing date: 22 November 2008 Researchers from UK higher education institutions can apply to use equipment at seven new services. These services provide free access at point of use to UK academic researchers, including travel and accommodation.

Contact: http://equipment.epsrc.ac.uk/ Collaborative Research Opportunities in Energy with South Africa Open Call The Research Councils' Energy Programme would like to encourage new and innovative collaborative projects focusing on energy related engineering and physical sciences with South Africa.

Contact: Clive Hayter, clive.hayter@epsrc.ac.uk For up to date information and details of how to apply see www.epsrc.ac.uk

Contact: Vicky Jones, vicky.jones@epsrc.ac.uk

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Connect January 2008 Issue 58

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

EPSRC Contacts Head of Engineering Programme Annette Bramley 01793 444398 annette.bramley@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Economy, Environment and Crime Programme Peter Hedges 01793 444217 peter.hedges@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Economic Impact Alasdair Rose 01793 444225 alasdair.rose@epsrc.ac.uk Joint Head of Energy and Climate Change Programme Alison Wall 01793 444176 alison.wall@epsrc.ac.uk Joint Head of Energy and Climate Change Programme Clive Hayter 01793 444440 clive.hayter@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Industrial Interaction Susan Morrell 01793 444462 susan.morrell@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Programme Alan Thomas 01793 442806 alan.thomas@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Digital Economy Programme John Hand 01793 444394 john.hand@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Materials Programme John Wand MBE 01793 444335 john.wand@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Technology Vince Osgood MBE 01793 444084 vince.osgood@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Chemistry Programme Neil Viner 01793 444310 neil.viner@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Mathematical Sciences Programme David Harman 01793 444304 david.harman@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Physics Programme Jason Green 01793 444208 jason.green@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Science and Innovation Philippa Hemmings 01793 444378 philippa.hemmings@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Life Sciences Interface Programme Kedar Pandya 01793 444317 kedar.pandya@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Basic Technology Programme Kedar Pandya 01793 444317 kedar.pandya@epsrc.ac.uk

UK National Grid Service Major expansion THE NGS provides coherent, free electronic access for UK academic researchers to computational and data based resources and facilities no matter where they are based. Researchers who join the NGS have access to much more computer power than that offered by local clusters, enabling them to tackle larger and more complex problems than ever before.

The NGS is based at the four core sites of Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL) and the Universities of Manchester, Oxford and Leeds. However the main area of growth this year has been in the number of partner and affiliate sites that have joined the NGS. The total number of member organisations has now reached eleven including two new recent members: a GridPP site and the University of Southampton.

GridPP is a collaboration of particle physicists and computer scientists from the UK and CERN who are building a distributed computing Grid across the UK for particle physicists. Now that the Imperial College GridPP site has become the first to join the NGS, all users, regardless of research area, will be able to tap into their resources.

The Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing at the University of Southampton provides access to the Microsoft Compute Cluster Service through a Globus gateway. This is the first instance of a Windows cluster being incorporated into a production level Grid, and it is now possible for these Windows-based computational resources to be shared with a wider user base in the e-Science community.

Several more institutions are in the process of becoming partner or affiliate members and the NGS welcomes enquiries from any interested organisations.

Contact: Gillian Sinclair, gillian.sinclair@manchester.ac.uk Further information: www.ngs.ac.uk

Opportunities for Collaborative R&D

International Affairs Edward Clarke 01793 444438 edward.clarke@epsrc.ac.uk

Technology Strategy Board issues call

Public Engagement Joanna Coleman 01793 444209 joanna.coleman@epsrc.ac.uk

THE Technology Strategy Board launched a new competition for proposals

Head of High End Computing and Core e-Science Programmes Jane Nicholson 01793 444065 jane.nicholson@epsrc.ac.uk College Coordinator John Baird 01793 444047 john.baird@epsrc.ac.uk IDEAS Factory Contact Susan Morrell 01793 444462 susan.morrell@epsrc.ac.uk

For current grant maintenance and grant assessment enquiries Engineering Chris Elson 01793 444504 chris.elson@epsrc.ac.uk Technology Sarah Cooper 01793 444422 sarah.cooper@epsrc.ac.uk Science Jo Garrad 01793 444348 jo.garrad@epsrc.ac.uk EPSRC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1ET Telephone: 01793 444000 www.epsrc.ac.uk Editor: Alex Hulkes, alex.hulkes@epsrc.ac.uk Circulation amendments: connect@epsrc.ac.uk © Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council 2008.

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for collaborative research and development at Innovate 2007 on 8 November.

EPSRC has made available up to £2m for the academic components within the competition’s Materials for Energy theme. Our contribution to research in the other themes (High Value Manufacturing and Cell Therapy) will be determined on a case by case basis. We will be targeting projects which build on, or are complementary to, current research programmes. Successful bids will demonstrate a significant high quality academic component and added value to our existing portfolio.

For the financial year 2007-08, total EPSRC Technology Programme co-funding will be about £12m. We have agreed to contribute £7.4m to the Spring 2007 competition for projects containing academic elements in the following themes: • • • • • • •

Networked Enterprise Lightweight Materials and Structures Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing Plastic Electronics – Materials Processing and Systems Integration Smart, Bioactive and Nanostructured Materials for Health Low Carbon Energy Technologies Oil and Gas Technologies

Further calls from the TSB will be issued in December 2007 and January 2008, covering additional technology areas.

Contact: Robert Heathman, robert.heathman@epsrc.ac.uk Further information: www.technologyprogramme.org.uk

Material may be reproduced providing the source is acknowledged.

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