| National leadership
As the national photonics manufacturing hub, we are responsible for providing leadership to the UK academic, industrial and government communities. Our role is to increase awareness and engagement with the ways photonics manufacturing research is tackling Grand Challenges, improving people’s lives and boosting productivity. We provide access to expertise which helps industry innovate and champion strategic investment that will drive social and economic impact. Conferences and exhibitions Playing an active leadership role on the conference and trade show circuit is one of the most powerful ways to engage stakeholders and represent the community on a global stage. Since 2016, we have participated in 106 conferences, trade shows and workshops around the world, giving keynotes and plenary talks, presenting papers and exhibiting technology demonstrators.
Hub Principal Investigator Professor Sir David Payne delivers a plenary at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco
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Despite the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, we continued to deliver our research to the some of the largest and best-known international conferences and exhibitions.
In February, Hub Principal Investigator, Professor Sir David Payne delivered a plenary just before lockdown at the prestigious OPTO at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco, the world’s largest photonics technologies event with 22,000 attendees. The Hub had a very strong presence across the five day event, with a number of accepted papers, an exhibition stand and a feature within the Tyndall Award 50th birthday exhibition, in recognition of Professor Sir David Payne’s Tyndall award for the invention of the Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier. Our 2020 industry day was held online in May at the SPIE Photonex + Vacuum Expo Digital Forum. The event programme for ‘Advances in Resilient Photonics Manufacturing’, included talks from leading colleagues in industry and academia enabled industry to access the latest innovations in new processes and approaches for manufacturing photonics components.
The format provided virtual networking opportunities and facilitated knowledge transfer of how photonics platforms can drive novel solutions to business challenges. In February, we took a stand at the Materials Research Exchange exhibition and conference at the Business Design Centre in London. Photonics horizons In March, Professor Sir David Payne, Professor Jon Heffernan, Professor Graham Reed and Dr Natalie Wheeler were invited by the Photonics Leadership Group to participate in a series of photonics horizon scanning workshops, where 22 internationally renowned professors and four early career researchers came together to represent the views of the UK photonics community.
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