September 2008 Issue 65
Keeping you in touch with opportunities from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
www.epsrc.ac.uk
Creating a Hub of Digital Economy Research A £30m investment to create new ‘Research Hubs’ in Digital Economy has been announced by EPSRC. The hubs will be large, multidisciplinary research centres that will build capacity and expertise in this priority research area. A call for proposals has been issued and funding is available to support three hubs for five years – at up to £10m each for core activity. The closing date for proposals is 26 November. The Digital Economy (DE) is an RCUK cross-research council programme, led by EPSRC, supporting research into the transformational impact that ICT could have on lives, society, business and government. The novel, innovative and in some cases subversive design and use of new technologies can affect an individual’s life choices. It can change the way society interacts, offer new modes of interaction for government, revolutionise existing business processes and create new business paradigms. The early involvement of the user community is vital if new technologies are to be integrated successfully into technical solutions, products and processes. The ability to understand, model and rapidly implement these new opportunities requires a multidisciplinary approach to research, understanding: • • •
why the change is needed, who will be using the outputs and what the impact will be.
Challenges in the DE require input across a broad spectrum of subjects including researchers from the arts and humanities, medical sciences and economic and social sciences, in addition to engineering and physical sciences. A successful hub will demonstrate existing or proposed collaborations across disciplines and with end-users, ensuring an appropriate multidisciplinary perspective. The call for proposals follows a scoping workshop, held earlier this summer, to discuss the challenges, issues and opportunities the DE Programme faces.
Attendees included academics from a wide range of disciplines and research areas, representatives from the Research Councils, Technology Strategy Board (TSB), Financial Services Authority, NHS, BT, IBM, GSK and other companies. Through a series of networking and idea-generation exercises the delegates were asked to inform the DE Programme of the ‘Big Questions’ surrounding this area of research and also any potential ways of addressing these challenges to help to shape future activities within the programme. This work has helped shape the future plans for the DE Programme, including the call for Research Hubs. Further information: www.epsrc.ac.uk/digitaleconomy Contact: John Hand, john.hand@epsrc.ac.uk Pamela Mason, pamela.mason@epsrc.ac.uk
What is Digital Economy? DIGITAL ECONOMY is the novel design or use of technologies to help transform the lives of individuals, society or business. The research will understand these technologies and why change is needed, what the impacts will be and who will benefit. Research in this cross-research council area can be driven by economic, social or technical need. For example: Improving the treatment of patients with heart disease by using personalised computer models which can accept real time data (e.g. electrical patterns and blood pressure). Development of a computer tool incorporating GPS and barcode scanners to help children who cannot speak create a story about their day at school. An integrated transport system, connecting travellers, vehicles and services to provide personalised information that will help influence travel behaviour.
Inside 2 Masters Funding Routes
3 Cross-disciplinary Research
4 GSK Partnership
5 Calls
Forthcoming EPSRC funding opportunities
6 Commons Reception