Postgraduate Training and Research
for the New Era
How Modern Universities and Industries can Work
Together
Professor Jeremy Watson FREng
Director: Global Research, Arup
jeremy.watson@arup.com
Chief Scientific Adviser: DCLG
jeremy.watson@communities.gsi.gov.uk
Arup
A trust, not a public company
- 10,000 employees worldwide
- 90 offices
- Multidisciplinary
Driven by belief in benefiting society and delivering the best quality of work
Investing to develop knowledge and capability
Innovation a key differentiator, togther with Design excellence and quality
Engineering
•
•
•
•
Dedicated Innovation executive
Close linkage with Foresight and Research groups
Flexible interventions: SPVs, licensing, market testing and introduction
Example: Investment in contactless recharging of electric vehicles
Arup – Projects
Major projects include:
-
Sydney Opera house (Australia)
Pompidou Centre (France)
Stansted Airport (UK)
Channel Tunnel Rail Link (UK)
Beijing Olympics – Water cube and Bird’s Nest stadium
Cross Rail
Integrated Research, Design and Engineering is a key business differentiator
Research context in Arup
• Research seen as essential to maintain and grow market position
– and identify incremental and step-out opportunities
• Research is typically ‘applied’ and anticipatory of business need:
time scale – ‘now’ to three years+
• Emphasis on innovation: ‘Concept to Commercialisation’
• Research ‘pull’ – from Business leaders and ‘push’ – from
Design and Technology networks and academic partners
• Research fund to encourage internal and external investment
• Driven by strategic roadmap
Arup Research capabilities
3-D Modelling
Acoustic s
Advanced Analysis
Air Quality
Archaeology / Heritage
Asset Management
Audio Visual
Aviation
Building Physics
Business Performance
Business Systems
Communications
Contaminated Land
Controls
Corporate Responsibility
Cost
Demand Analysis
Design Research
Development Planning
Dynamic Behaviour (structures)
Ecology
Economics
Education
Electrical Services
Energy
Environment
Facades
Flood management
Fluids
Geology
Geotechnics
Healthcare
Highw ays
Human Behavioural Dynamics
Industrial Consulting
Inspection Repair Refurb
Investment appraisal
IT
Know ledge Management
Landscape
Lighting
Logistics
Maritime
Materials
Mechanical Services
Moving Structures
People Movements
Pharmaceuticals
Planning Regulation
Product Design
Project Management
Public Health
Railw ays
Safety
Tunnelling
Universal Access
Urban Design
Vehicle Design
Venues
Vertic al Transportation
Waste
Water
Workplace Performance
Arup Research – Global Deliverables
Research Offering
Components
• Corporate research roadmaps
1. Strategy
• Regional and group strategy facilitation
• Grow and develop the research network
2. Network
• Internal engagement in multidisciplinary research
• Engagement with key external partners
• Set up and management of research consortiums
3. Funding
• Links to research funding bodies
4. Building capability
• Doctoral training
Delivering the Research Strategy
Influencing research agendas
• Facilitating and supporting the
delivery of regional research
strategies
• Implementing roadmap-based
funding mechanisms
• Sharing priorities with partners
and funding agencies
Research Strategy
Regional Research Champions
Global strategy team
Regional Champions act as
representatives and liaison points for
corporate Research. They are
responsible for supporting the
development and executing the
Regional Research Strategy
Relationships with National Funding Agencies
Proactive mission to promote mutually-beneficial
relationships
- Thought-leadership and ‘agenda calibration’
- Unbiased sectoral representation
- Roadmap-sharing to assist national research agendas
Awareness of and response to Calls
Consortium formation
Strategic Partnerships
- EPSRC allowing definition of Programmes under joint funding
Research Funding at Arup
In house research
- R&D calls for proposals for Global and regional projects £600k
- Project Plus £50k
External collaborative: regional and global
- External Collaborative Research projects £600k Global, £130k Americas
- Pays Arup staff time and expenses for collaborations
- Leverage between x1.5 and x4
Manage
~£2.5m
Arup’s Knowledge Supply Chain
Arup’s approach – a Knowledge Supply Chain
Foresight
- Internal using roadmapping
- External using focus groups
Product
Service
Process
Research strategy development
- Consultation with business units and clients
Research execution
- Collaboration with universities and research councils
Validation and deployment
Capability development
- In-house university offering EngDs with UCL
- 55 (internal + external) doctoral students world-wide
Innovation
Now, New, Next
• Emerging trends – Drivers of Change
• Thought leadership
• Delivering the agenda
Concept
• Needs interpretation
• Knowledge generation
• Delivering IP
• Community
• Operational excellence
• Delivery to projects
‘New’
Foresight
Research
‘Now’
Commercialisation
‘Next’
Skills
Networks
Time
Managing Ideas
Food
production
BIPVIdea
creation &
Odersund
triage
Glass roofs
Low cost
PV
Balu
Airplank
Geotechnichs and
Google Earth
SparACE
BAU
Closed
CAS-wind
turbines
NEW
Truss floor
Habitat
mapping
DefinIT
Biodiversity
Green Roofs
Twisting
towers
Cold sintering of
carbonate
True colour
terrestrial laser
scanning
Realdania
Mortar-less
brick wall
Solar
Chimney
Whiplash
protection
Commercialisation
TekDek
SparACE
Open projects
Pufferfish
Legal
processes
Green date centres
Rainwater
harvesting
Bullet trajectory
Mail manager support
for blackberry
Hydrofluids
Invarion
Inflatable roof
Origin of the idea
External
Internal
Joint
Inhaler mouth
piece design
SEED
NURSERY
DEVELOPMENT
ESTABLISHED
Arup University
Arup has always provided a learning culture
In 2007, we added a formal programme of staff development
Doctoral
modules
Accredited EngD qualification
4-year, on-the-job
Driven by business need
Masters
modules
Intensive 10 day specialist training
Provided by HEI partners
Professional
modules
Distance and face-to-face CPD
Provided by regional skills networks
Doctoral study
•
Arup University Doctoral Programme
• Agreed guidelines permit ‘study on the
job’ – 40 days per year study
•
Doctoral awards accredited by UCL
under terms of a strategic MoU
Delivery partnerships with Columbia
University, NY and HKUST
•
•
Recruitment of first cohort of Research
Engineers: >50 applications
•
•
Establishment of Doctoral College
Conference November 2011
Doctoral College
“The Doctoral College was set up to create a community of Arup research students, where
they can share knowledge, experiences and foster links between internal Arup experts and
external doctoral students, their academic supervisors and host universities.”
Doctoral College established Spring 2011
55 members and growing
Includes all students undertaking PhD study either part funded or supported by Arup (e.g.EngD’s,
CASE Award, Arup University DM modules, part time study)
HEI Collaboration supported by Arup
Lecturing and supervision
Studentships
• Internships
• Sponsored first degree students
• Masters (incl. Arup branded courses)
• Doctorates, Eng D
Research collaboration
• Co-sponsorship of government funded research
• Use of specialised facilities at universities: cooperation/fee for service
• Contract research
Strategic engagement
• Endowed chairs at departments
• Staff education-Arup University
• Membership of university advisory groups
Example: Collaboration with UCL
Multi-threaded, ‘natural partnership’
Thames Gateway Institute for Sustainability
- Research partners
- IfS chair
EPSRC Networks
- Eco-cities with China
Arup’s in-house ‘university’
- Doctoral registration, accreditation and research training
IDC/CDT involvement: Sustainability and Resilience,
Energy
Advisory Boards: Enterprise, Sustainable Cities
Reciprocal visiting staff and faculty
Doctoral studentships (CASE, EngD, etc.)
What are the challenges of Industry-HEI collaboration?
• IP & contracts
• Information sharing
– Who are the experts?
• Gap between proven technology (TRL 3)
and implementation (TRL 6-7)
• Dissemination
– ‘Continuous transfer’
• Measuring the impact
What are the benefits?
•
Open innovation
•
Creating and demonstrating Impact – business and academic
•
Partnering for adventurous research
- Higher risk research appropriate for HEIs
•
Leveraging research funds
- Co-funding with Research Councils
- Private/public research consortia (e.g. E2B PPP)
•
Allowing client dialogue to continue in downturn
- Interests beyond immediate business
- Identifying future opportunities and preparing through research
•
Respond to strategic priorities
•
Collaboration vs. spin out – long term investment
Innovation drives Collaboration
What is Innovation?
It’s not just about invention or creativity (but creativity’s pretty
important)
Concept to Commercialisation? (TSB’s new theme)
Idea to Implementation?
Schumpeter: ‘Creative destruction’ – Disruptive
technologies
Displaces and replaces – products, processes
Also augments, makes more effective
Associated with entrepreneurial thinking
Creating jobs which did not previously exist, and solving problems that people assumed
were part of the natural order of things (Economist, Feb 24 2011)
Types of Innovation
Push
- Technology creates a market
 Long gestation, success = high payoff
Pull
- Existing market drives development
 Rapid deployment, standards help
Platform innovation
- Enhancement of market
Concurrent and continuous
- Collaboration across supply chains
 Facilitated by industry associations
Triggering and nourishing innovation
Thought-styles
- Analogies, cross-discipline transfers, e.g. Biomimetics
- Systems thinking and multi-disciplinarity
- Curiosity-driven research
Real needs
- Economic growth, carbon neutrality
Funding environment (UK)
- Flat CSR, Technology Strategy Board active and effective
Connectivity and partnerships
- Co-creation and open-source approaches
Some current effectors in innovation
VTT thoughts
• Blurring of industrial boundaries
• Co-creation with the customer and with users
• Social media changing the life style
• New generations have different values and ways to make
decisions
• Shifting center of gravity of global business is changing the
rules
• Outsourcing / Crowdsourcing of R&D&I
Government interventions can help
Research Councils (7)
- £2.5bn investment in university research per annum
- Company participation through sponsorship, research students,
etc.
Technology Strategy Board
- Technology transfer and deployment
- Innovation Platforms
50% support
- Collaborative R&D
- Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs)
- Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs): 66% / 70%
employment costs
- SBRI – Strategic procurement: 100% funding
Innovation - Inhibitors and Drivers
Cost
- E.g. Pharma - £1bn, 10 years, 1 in 20 success rate
 Getting less favourable
IP
- Academic approaches can be an impediment, only 10% of revenue at
MIT
Risk mitigation through:
- Modelling
- Open innovation
- Sharing risk e.g. with trials patients in Pharma
New ideas vs. Incremental thinking – c.f. Academic drivers/risks
Examples of Arup Collaborative
Research
Emerging Research Topics for
Collaboration
Carbon emission: a top-level driver
Drivers and Trends: CO2
Keeling curve
CO2 rise derived from Antarctic
ice core measurements and
readings from Mauna Loa,
Hawaii.
James Watt’s steam engine
developments took place in the
1750s
IT responsible for 3% of CO2
emission, similar to aviation
• Tipping point – 500ppm?
Ice caps melt, more sunlight absorbed, trapped CH4 & CO2 released
Temperature modelling
Met Office
Observed temperatures
Simulated temperatures
Summer 2003:
normal by 2040s, cool by 2080s
Stott Nature 2004 – updated to 2007 – HadGEM1
Policy: Priorities for the Built Environment
Adaptation (time-frame 0 to 50+ years)
•
Global temperature increase has already led to seasonal extremes
•
23,000 excess deaths in EU in 2003, ~900 in UK
•
Need to design buildings with passive cooling (and ensure that compliance with
high code levels does not make things worse)
Energy shortages (time frame 5 to indefinite years)
•
Global depletion of fossil fuels and exhaustion of indigenous fossil fuels
•
Drive to de-carbonise central energy resources – need to ‘go nuclear’
•
Need to minimise energy consumption in buildings
Mitigation (time frame 0 – 200+ years)
•
We have to live with effects of already-emitted carbon for 200+ years
•
Ultimately must bring carbon emissions to an equilibrium point
•
Possible active sequestration – CCS plus atmospheric abatement
•
Buildings viewed at district-level should be carbon neutral or negative
Regulatory obligations
HMG is committed to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 and 45% of
all present carbon emissions come from existing buildings, with 27% from
homes
80%+ of existing buildings will still be here in 2050
Building regulations – review in 2013
Obligations – e.g. mandatory emissions reduction targets
- 2016 – Residential new build zero carbon
- 2019 – Commercial new build zero carbon
- 2050 – 80% carbon impact reduction: legacy and new build
Energy Act 2011 – First Green Deal Q4 2012
Buildings: retrofit challenges
Issues
•
~22m homes to be retrofitted by 2050  1500 per day from now ‘till 2050
•
£10,000 - £20,000 cost per home
•
Impact of £220bn - £440bn
•
Inhomogeneity of stock implies challenge in achieving ‘standard solutions’
•
Lack of standard solutions implies difficulty in obtaining cost-down through scale
Needs
•
Cooperation across the supply chain – industry association as collaborative and
single-minded as SEMI
•
Deployment at scale of relevant materials, components and systems
•
Skills to install
•
Behaviour change
•
De-risked finance models – investment-quality energy audits
Infrastructure UK
Some £200 billion of investment planned over the
next five years, across the economic infrastructure
sectors (energy, transport, waste, flood, science,
water and telecoms)
IUK has been set up as a separate unit within HM Treasury, providing advice to the
Commercial Secretary to the Treasury who leads on infrastructure issues and who reports to
the Chancellor of the Exchequer
IUK aims:
To provide greater clarity and coordination over the planning,
prioritisation and enabling of investment in UK infrastructure;
To improve delivery of UK infrastructure through achieving greater value
for money
An expert advisory group (EIEG) is working to identify technical interdependencies
and opportunities
Infrastructure: a systems issue
•
Understanding costs and
VfM opportunities
•
Synergies and interdependencies
•
Holistic planning and
maintenance
•
Futureproofing and repurposing
Built environment in the 22nd century
Designed as an integrated and organic system
High density, low rise, mixed use, ‘walkable’
District-level thermal and electrical energy from waste and renewables
De-carbonised electricity grid – nuclear and large-scale renewables, with distributed energy storage
and HVDC links to Europe
Water recycling and re-use; local pluvial management
Local, hyper-automated manufacture of consumables, including food
Service provision augments ultra-durable capital consumer goods
Adapted dietary habits and food requirements
Reduced population, post demographic bulge, pervasive behaviour change
New work styles enabled by ultra-high bandwidth ICT
Behavioural challenges
-
Dominant effect compared with physical interventions
Building and product design influences sensitivity to behaviour
Rebound and contrary behaviours
How to engineer design from objective outcomes?
- Transition dynamics – adoption curves
- Role of regulation and fashion alongside technology
- Need for multi-disciplinary research to guide engineering and policy
- Systems which learn (and maybe question) choices and behaviour
In Conclusion...
New innovation behaviours can enable growth of
collaboration
Challenges for the industry and its knowledge and physical supply chains
Need research, demonstration and business collaboration down the length of
the supply chain
The players?
-
Universities and Research Technology Organisations
Manufacturers of components and systems
Architects, designers and engineers
Construction and Facilities Management
Owners and Users
“If we collaborate now, how much bigger will the market be in two years?”
Parallel as well as serial development
Trends and the Future
• Centres of Excellence spanning regional and national boundaries
-
Not just overseas spinoffs
• Advanced international funding schemes e.g. EraNet
• Open Innovation clubs with multi-national industry partners
• University departments as co-innovators with industry –
permeable boundaries
• ‘Grand Challenges’ shared internationally
49
Postgraduate Training and Research
for the New Era
How Modern Universities and Industries can Work
Together
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Professor Jeremy Watson FREng
Director: Global Research, Arup
jeremy.watson@arup.com
Chief Scientific Adviser: DCLG
jeremy.watson@communities.gsi.gov.uk