About the session
We are in transition from the 'industrial age' to a 'knowledge age' or 'information age'. Advances in science, engineering and technology (SET) are crucial to success, as is ensuring that we have an adequate supply of skilled people in these areas. Governments around the world are seeking to measure up to the challenge of increasing national investment in research and innovation, exemplified in the UK by the publication in July 2004 of a 10-year science and innovation investment framework which signals very clear commitment to developing the knowledge economy. So what, then, are the implications for business and for the 'science base' (universities and the like), and what of research funding agencies? In the UK, as elsewhere, many companies increasingly look towards universities for basic research and there are some excellent examples of strategic partnerships that have developed to provide for this. Particularly powerful are the three-way partnerships wherein industry, universities and 'arms-length' funding agencies such as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) draw up a shared agenda and secure mutually beneficial leverage from one another. The benefits are far more than financial - or more than the immediately perceived financial. Experience shows that greater engagement with universities encourages industry to appreciate the need for and to 'buy into' the longer term, while universities find that the more intimate engagement with industrially-inspired challenges can open up new intellectual horizons for research. And then there is the nature of research in the 'knowledge age', increasingly recognised as inherently interdisciplinary. Of course, in one sense it was ever thus; but never more so than today - to an extent that has led Sir David Brown, outgoing IEE President, in discussing the implications for the IEE and the engineering profession more generally. The pace of change and the intimacy of interaction have raised the bar considerably. There are profound implications for the way we need to educate, train and support the continuing development and networking needs of professionals in engineering and technology. This address explores these issues, drawing on examples to illustrate the importance of SET in general and the particular benefits of interdisciplinary engagement in strong partnerships based on industry and universities working together.
