Knowledge Exchange and Economic Benefit Dr Mark Parsons Commercial Director EPCC and NeSC
Why work with industry? From outset industry was a key component of DTIs Grid Core Programme (GCP) Industry collaboration brought – Early access for industry to research excellence and input to user requirements – Industry quality software development practices Edinburgh already had several decades of experience in engaging with industry and demonstrated UK leadership
Early industry projects Within the first 2 years of programme many projects – funded 50:50 with industry – were established: 1.OGSA-DAI – IBM and Oracle 2.FirstDIG – First Group Buses 3.PGPGrid – Peppers Ghost Productions 4.SunDCG – Sun Microsystems 5.MS.NetGRID - Microsoft 6.BRIDGES - IBM 7.GridWeaver – Hewlett Packard and many more then and since
Building on success UK led e-Science funding in Europe Early UK funding leveraged large European programmes Placed Edinburgh at the centre of many European projects collaborating with industry e.g. – NextGRID – 22 partners, 12 from industry – GRIDSTART – network of companies and universities – BEinGRID – 100+ partners and multiple business experiment projects Continues to this day with ADMIRE and many other EU projects
Economic Impact Early funding enabled UK companies to get immediate access to new technologies GCP ensured developments benefitted both science and industry from outset – Stimulated increased engagement between Computer Science departments and Industry & Commerce Use of Open Source enabled rapid Technology Transfer and takeup Many projects became long-term eg. OGSA-DAI
Three success stories Peter Toft, HP Laboratories Bristol – GridWeaver project – an early GCP success Vivian Lee, Fujitsu Laboratories Europe – ADMIRE project – an ongoing EU success Richard Baldock, MRC Human Genetics Unit – 3DMouseGrid and other projects – successful collaboration through the e-Science Programme
Conclusions e-Science industry collaborations were very successful Edinburgh continues a wide variety of Knowledge Exchange projects, focussing on – Entrepreneurship – Company creation – Collaborative research and consultancy Many of the early e-Science partner companies continue to engage