Industrial and Academic Advisory Group

There is now widespread agreement that the UK economy would benefit from a re-balancing towards high-technology manufacturing to be more resilient to downturns in the financial markets. This project sought to help achieve this by developing new and improved applications for utilising the electromagnetic spectrum, that impact diverse industries, from the radio communication and radar industries to the optical communication and devices industries.

To help us achieve this goal, an international advisory board, comprised of world-leading academics and representatives from leading UK companies and organisations, advised the Team on:

• strategic scientific research directions
• maintaining the industrial relevance of the research
• changes to the relevant commercial landscape in the UK and abroad
• benchmarking the activities from an international perspective

In particular, we obtained support from leading companies and Government organisations wishing to work with us in finding applications of this technology. These included DSTL, BAE Systems, Cobham, Flann Microwaves, STFC and NPL. Information about these companies is given below.

Members:

• Prof. Peter Clarricoats CBE FRS FREng, Co-chairperson
• Prof. Ian Youngs, Fellow, DSTL; Co-chairperson
• Prof. Raj Mittra, Penn State University, USA
• Prof. Ian MacDiarmid FIET, Head of Electromagnetics, BAE Systems
• Professor Sir John Pendry FRS, Imperial College
• Dr James Watts, Flann Microwave Limited
• Prof. Vince Fusco, Queen’s University at Belfast
• Dr Robert Pearson, Director, Cobham
• Prof. Chris Lawrence, Technical Manager, QinetiQ
• Dr Peter Huggard, RAL Space, STFC, Oxford
• Dr Tian Hong Loh, Senior Research Scientist, National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
• Prof. Xiang Zhang, UC Berkeley, USA
• Paul Febvre, Chief Technology Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult, UK
• John Griffin FIET CEng, Innovation Director, Selex ES
• Prof. Brian Collins, Consultant, BSC Associates