Research Outside Universities

Tuesday 11th April: 9.00-10.30
Chair: Jeremy Howells

 

As links between universities and industry become stronger and academic institutions increasingly develop alliances with policy agencies it is becoming more apparent that a successful researcher career need not be limited to a choice between working in a university of being employed in industry. Universities and museums are developing to become more forward facing and successful universities across Europe use their number of spin out companies as one indicator of the value of their research.

These developing relationships between publicly funded institutions and other agencies are not without their tensions. In an knowledge-based society research and innovation have become central assets to individuals and companies and have therefore become increasingly drawn by the sometimes divergent needs of private finance, markets, education and ‘the public good'.

This plenary session explores some of these issues about research outside universities through the personal narratives of the invited speakers. They will offer an insight into their own career, how they came to work in their current research environments, along with a view of the benefits and challenges they have experienced through their journey.

These session will introduced with a keynote speech from Dr Cutis Dobson who has worked at The university of Manchester for over ten years and established his own company, Ai2 Ltd, in order to exploit his work on developing new technologies for tackling neurodegenerative disease.

Panel members include: David Beeson - InFocus Health (France); Daniel Gros - CEPS (Belgium); Tine Huyse - Natural History Museum (UK); Fabien Petitcolas, External Research Office, Microsoft Research (UK) and Preben Svendsen - Polytec R&D Foundation (Norway).