MAY 2013
This is the third ‘newsletter’ for the Science City Advanced Materials 2 project. The aim is to share
information about progress and updates on the achievements on the project and the wider Science
City Research Alliance.
Science City Research Alliance Advanced Materials 2 project
Science City Programme news:
The Science City Research Alliance website is now live – the address is:
www.sciencecityresearchalliance.co.uk The website will cover all 6 Science City
projects across the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick and will give a much
greater external presence for the programme. A key aspect of the website will be
case studies to show how Science City researchers have supported regional
businesses – please contact the project manager if you have any case studies
which can be used: andrew.todd@warwick.ac.uk
Prof Chris McConville
SCRA Director
Advanced Materials 2 project update:
The project will continue until March 2018 and both universities are committed to the Science City
Research Alliance and building industrial collaboration.
Professor Mike Adams stepped down from the Project Management Board at the
end of 2012 and was replaced by Professor Liam Grover from the School of
Chemical Engineering at Birmingham (right).
Phil Smith took over the Business Engagement role at the start of 2013 (replacing
Karl West) and is supporting the development of connections with industry and the
delivery of the AM2 business outputs.
Outputs:
The targets for academic
papers, presentations,
levered funding and
demonstrators have now
been achieved (although
the project will continue to
record this information and
over achieve).
The outputs for business
engagement are currently
behind target but a number
of business assists are in the
pipeline and will be
delivered in the next few
months.
Please let me know if you
have any potential outputs
we may be able to claim. In
particular, new jobs in your
research groups, graduates
into West Midland jobs and
interactions with regional
businesses.
Output
Jobs Created – New jobs created
Business Creation – business
created & demonstrating growth
Business Support – business
supported to improve their
performance
Business Support- business
engaged in new collaborations
with the knowledge base
Skills – People assisted to improve
skills
Graduates into employment
Levered Revenue Funding
Creation of Demonstrator Projects
New Patents or Licence
Agreements
Workshops
Peer Reviewed Publications
Presentations at Conferences
Target to Dec Claimed to Total Output % Complete
Target
2013
date
(2015 for
(May 2013)
ERDF, 2018
AWM)
38
46
53
87%
1
1
5
20%
52
24
79
30%
49
23
79
29%
_
175
132
133%
29
_
_
21
29
£20,075,236 £20,000,000
3
3
72%
100%
100%
_
5
3
167%
_
_
_
23
251
212
22
205
205
105%
122%
103%
Please continue to acknowledge the Science City and ERDF funding in grant applications, papers
and presentations so we can continue to achieve these outputs. Please contact the Project
Manager if you have any questions about this.
MAY 2013
Business Engagement:
The Advanced Materials 2 project is engaging with a number of businesses both through Phil Smith as
Business Lead and through individual academics.
Recent business engagement activities include:
 Hosting a one-day workshop with RAPRA to engage with regional
businesses working in polymers.
 Meeting with more than 20 new businesses to develop potential
areas of work around Advanced Materials.
 Visiting the Manufacturing Technology Centre (Coventry) to discuss
potential links around materials analysis and advanced materials
 The project has also been involved in a number of events this year
Phil Smith
including the launch of the NHS NIHR Trauma Management HTC, the
Business Lead
RSC Networking event in Birmingham, Ecobuild and Sustainability
Live.
Through these activities, 5 new business relationships have been developed and 10 new business
prospects and there is now a strong pipeline of future business outputs for the AM2 project.
If you would like further information on business engagement activities or would like support in meeting
regional companies, please contact Phil Smith p.n.smith@warwick.ac.uk
Other project news:





Dr Giovanni Costantini won a prestigious European Research Council grant in “Visualising
supramolecular assembly by preparative mass spectrometry VISUAL-MS”. The £1.1million research
project will apply the high-resolution imaging capabilities of advanced scanning probe microscopy
to develop a molecular scale understanding of the interaction of bio(molecules) with solid
substrates.
Professor Rachel O’Reilly has been awarded the 2013 Hermann Mark Young Scholar award from
the POLY division of the American Chemical Society. Her award will be presented at a special
symposium later in the year. Rachel has also been elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society of
Chemistry.
Dr Matt Gibson was awarded the MacroGroup UK Young Researchers Medal for 2012. He will give
his award lecture and receive the prize at APME conference in Durham later this year.
Professor Liam Grover, School of Chemical Engineering, won £80,000 from Orthopaedic Research
UK for the project, “Designing a robust process for clinical translation of tissue engineered bone to
bone ligament replacements”.
Welcome to Dr David Cheneler who has been awarded one of the Science City Research Alliance
Fellowships to work in the area of mechanical analysis of artificial tissues between the departments
of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering at Birmingham.
News from other SCRA projects:
 Dr Jackson Kirkman-Brown, Science Lead for the Birmingham Women’s Fertility Centre and Director
of the Centre for Human Reproductive Science at the University of Birmingham, was awarded an
MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours. Dr Kirkman-Brown is one of the UK’s leading researchers in
the field of reproductive medicine and heads cutting-edge studies into the science behind fertility for
the benefit of couples struggling to conceive. He works on the SCRA Translational Medicine 1
project.
 More than £120 million has now been levered into the Science City Research Alliance. This includes
funding from the Research Councils, Technology Strategy Board, European Commission and charities.
The programme has worked with nearly 200 businesses and created more than 250 jobs in the West
Midlands.
If you have any feedback or news you would like to share, please contact Andrew Todd (AM2 Project
Manager) at andrew.todd@warwick.ac.uk