UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to award £3.6 million for photonics manufacturing research

Swindon, England--Eighteen-month photonics feasibility studies in the United Kingdom (UK) aimed at advancing manufacturing in diverse sectors including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics, and security will be funded to a total of £3.6 million, Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced. He unveiled the initiative as he toured M Squared (Glasgow, Scotland), a company that makes leading-edge Ti:sapphire and other lasers. The money will come from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

“This new funding will develop research to support the UK’s growing manufacturing sector, which already employs around 2.5 million people," Cable said. "This early-stage research will give businesses such as M Squared a great opportunity to develop new technologies to create more effective and efficient manufacturing processes. The Government's industrial strategy is giving business the confidence to invest, delivering skilled jobs and driving growth in Scotland and across the UK. We must not stand still and risk being left behind in the future.”

Examples of the 14 projects include investigations into laser-guided positioning of living cells to aid pharmaceutical testing; using novel photochemistry to take chemical processes from the laboratory to commercial plants; controlling electronic forces using light patterns to assemble electronic components into circuits, and using lasers themselves as a growth technique to create high-power laser devices that can be adopted by the UK manufacturing sector.

“The UK remains a major manufacturing nation and this new EPSRC initiative will help us stay ahead of the competition," said professor Sir David Payne, director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton and a founder of SPI Lasers (Santa Clara, CA). "Photonics -- where light meets electronics -- is a key UK strength and these new projects demonstrate the astonishing range of innovative ideas that emerge when scientists and engineers think about manufacturing. The key is to work with industry and understand the opportunity not only to improve existing manufacturing methods, but to develop entirely new ways to make things.”

Source: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2014/Pages/lightfantasticfunding.aspx

Industry Day at EPSRC UCL-Cambridge Centre, London
In a related event, the EPSRC University College London and University of Cambridge Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in photonic systems development in London will hold its annual Industry Day on January 24, 2014. There, along with technical presentations, networking events, and talk of project-proposal arrangements, the event leaders will be filling attendees in on details of the launch of the new Centre, which EPSRC funded last November. The emphasis will be on integrated photonic and electronic systems.

Source: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/integrated-photonics-electronic-systems-ipes-industry-day-for-ucl-cambridge-centre-tickets-9653264173?_escaped_fragment_=#!