IMPACT! PEOPLE
EPSRC engineering student Liza Brooks combined a passion for winter sports, design knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit to create the UK’s largest snowboard company.
True Snowboards Ltd prides itself on engineering the best boards in the business, and its sponsored riders won more medals than any other company at the British Championships for two years running.
“EPSRC funding is essential to pushing industry forward.”
Professor Brian Collins has a very varied, interesting and important role that affects all our lives.
As Chief Scientific Adviser to two Government departments – the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – his advice helps improve everything from national infrastructure such as ICT, water and the road and rail network to new opportunities for business development.
“If you go through the phd training and education process successfully you come out with somany options and can contribute in lots of ways to society.”
Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy is using his passion for the subject to inspire a new generation of genius.
He is an EPSRC senior media fellow and was appointed University of Oxford’s Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science in 2008 – succeeding Professor Richard Dawkins.
“It is essential that science has ambassadors to communicate the excitement and importance of science in society.”
By pioneering innovative technology, Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer is helping the world tackle climate change.
Supported by EPSRC, she leads the Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Nottingham. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology traps CO2 at the source of emission and prevents it entering the atmosphere.
“None of this would have happened without epsrc funding. it has given my team the flexibility to be creative and try new routes.”
Professor Sir John Pendry is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists and his revolutionary work on materials has opened the doors to a world of new possibilities.
With EPSRC support, Pendry established an entirely new field of science – known as metamaterials. These new materials derive their properties from their structure not the material from which they are made. In short, his work has created materials with electromagnetic properties that give us greater control of light itself.
“Having great ideas doesn’t involve excessive time. but what does take time is working them through, selling ideas to colleagues and writing the papers. that’s what EPSRC funding allowed me to do. it put a rocket under the metamaterials work.”
“My impact will be not to have an impact,” says leading digital economy researcher Professor Tom Rodden.
It may sound like a strange notion. But the world of ubiquitous computing is about seamlessly embedding digital technology into everyday life, allowing people to focus on the impacts it has rather than the technology itself.
“EPSRC encourage adventure and allow you to cross boundaries. the freedom to be adventurous and do the unusual cannot be underestimated.”
Imagine a cheap, reliable mobile phone you could fold into your back pocket, a TV that just rolled up for storage or electronic paper.
These are just some of the products that are being made possible by Professor Aimin Song with EPSRC support.
Song, from the University of Manchester, is at the forefront of printed or plastic electronics research – a global growth industry, which has an estimated $30bn market by 2015.
“Further EPSRC funding then helped bridge the gap between the fundamental study and commercialisation.”
As head of research and development for one of the biggest brands in sport, Tom Waller will influence everything from Olympic finals to family beach holidays.
The former EPSRC-supported student and researcher is now head of Aqualab, Speedo’s global research and development facility based in Nottingham.
Swimming is a multi-billion pound industry, ranging from elite performance products to a lifestyle market that includes “anything you would wear in or around water”.
“It is vital we get support from epsrc to create the knowledge that can be taken up by brands like speedo.”