The Research Councils, which collectively invest over £2.5bn a year in research, call for the UK's research organisations to pull together in a concerted effort to meet the challenges of globalisation
Speaking at a conference for leading industrialists and academics on 28 September, Professor Philip Esler, the Research Councils UK (RCUK) lead on economic impact, will argue that government, research funders, universities, RDAs and businesses need to work in unison if the UK is to effectively realise the economic and social potential of its world-leading academic research.
Esler is giving a speech at the RCUK-sponsored annual conference of the Association for University Research and Industry Links (Auril) in Liverpool.
He will outline the work currently underway by the groups that together work on transferring knowledge from the UK research base for the benefit of the economy and society.
Esler will recognise the achievements that have been made to date but, in looking forward, he will call on all organisations with an interest in furthering knowledge transfer to work together in co-ordinating flow of people and knowledge from the research base, increasing the commercialisation of research and improving industry-academia collaboration.
Speaking ahead of the conference, Esler said: "The UK government has identified globalisation and the implications of a global economy as one of the key challenges facing the UK in coming decades.
"In order to create and maintain the highly-skilled, knowledge-based economy that will allow this country to thrive when other countries can undertake manufacturing so cheaply we need to harness the world-leading research in our universities and research institutes.
"We can only do this effectively when everyone involved in knowledge transfer works together and pulls in a common direction.
Universities, institutes, RDAs and business have worked with and alongside the research councils for a number of years and there have been many successes.
"The different research councils are working in collaboration with organisations such as the BBC, biopharmaceutical manufacturers, GSK, BAE Systems and thousands of SMEs to ensure that our research efforts take into account the R+D demands of different sectors.
"However, we need to look to the future and examine how the research councils and our partners can work most effectively together to deliver the step-change in economic and social impact from our research investments that the government is looking for and the UK needs."
