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Talk 200 is a new lecture and podcast series from The University of Manchester, launching to mark our bicentenary: 200 years of making a difference.
This year we’re reflecting on our past, celebrating our present and looking to the future – and Talk 200 invites listeners to be part of the journey.
Our podcast host, Manchester aficionado, author, and University alumnus Andy Spinoza will be joined by a diverse line-up of guests from our community – pioneering academics and notable figures, inspiring staff, alumni and students – to discuss topics such as health, digital and AI, climate change, and equality and justice.
[Music]
Hello and welcome to Talk 200, a lecture and podcast series to celebrate
the University of
Manchester's Bicentenary year. Our 200th anniversary is a time to celebrate
200 years of learning,
innovation and research. 200 years of our incredible people and community,
200 years of global influence.
In this series, you'll be hearing from some of the nation's foremost
scientists, thinkers and
social commentators, plus many other voices from across our university
community as we explore the
big topics affecting us all. Today we're going to find out how you turn
great ideas into world-changing
ones and the impact they have on society and economic growth. From the
first pioneering discourse
on artificial intelligence to the isolation of graphene, many of the most
transformative ideas of
our time were formed in Manchester. But once you have a breakthrough, then
what? Our mission is to
ensure the world-leading research developed here reaches its full potential
and benefits wider
society, whether through commercialisation, enterprise or collaboration
with industry partners.
This episode's guests will discuss how at Manchester we're structured to
achieve this
aim. We'll be talking about innovation in all its forms, highlighting its
ongoing role in
driving Manchester's growing economy and discussing the initiatives across
our university that are
helping to define our city as a true global leader in innovation. Yeah, so
I'm Richard Jones,
I'm a professor of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy, which is a good
combination,
and I'm also Vice-President for Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement.
So everything the University
does to try and boost the regional economy, the city's economy, to work
with the city.
That's what I look after, as it were. Thank you, Aline. Hi, I'm Aline
Miller, a professor of
Biomolecular Engineering within our Science and Engineering Faculty. I'm
also Associate Dean there,
looking after Business Engagement and Innovation for the Faculty. Okay,
well, innovation…
It's a big concept and I think it maybe is really meaningful in the context
in which it's applied.
So can I ask, first of all, Richard, what does innovation mean to you and
in your area?
Yeah, well, there's no old saying that an old polymer chemist told me, who
I learned a lot from.
He said: "Research is turning money into ideas. Innovation is turning ideas
into money.”
And so it's the way that we take all the great research that happens in the
University and we
convert that…, I mean, not just into money, but into impact, into tangible
outcomes that affect
people's lives - could be supporting businesses, could be creating new
businesses that create jobs
and growth. So, it's about that translation. It's about getting stuff out
of the lab or out of the…,
wherever we're doing our research, and having a real impact on the nation,
the city, communities
around us. So innovation to me is really when you look at a problem, and
then you look at it from
a completely new fresh angle. So it's looking to solve problems, to create
impact. And then what
you do with that impact, whether it's a societal, environmental, or
commercial, or economic impact,
then you can start to really help change people's lives. So that's what
innovation, sort of, means to me.
Okay, and, I mean, Richard, innovation in erm…, to many people may mean
digital or technical
innovation and change. Is that the case?
wider than that?
Or can innovation, you know, be
Well, it's much broader than that. And actually, even technical innovation,
yeah, we see new apps,
we see new things, but just the whole substrate that tech happens on, you
know. That's all about
physical innovation. It's about creating new devices. So there's a whole
range of places where
it's important. It's creating new sources of energy, new ways of processing
information,
new ways of dealing with health issues, which is a really big deal for all
of us.
So innovation happens all the time and it's often not terribly visible.
People don't notice the
fact that, you know, their products have got a little bit better. Things
work a little bit better.
Things are a bit more efficient. So yeah, there's some kind of really big
breakthrough
innovations that look really obvious. And then there's just the kind of
relentless progress of
everything just getting a little bit better. People working out how to do
things in a better way,
getting slightly better products, working out how to make the, you know,
the processes by which
they make them a little bit more efficient. So yes, both big radical
changes, but lots of
little stuff as well. And it's that that adds up to progress really. So
what's the link between
innovation and economic growth? So there's a couple of angles to it. One is
thinking about
sort of creating more money that comes through the economy. So that's
thinking about building
processes better so they're more efficient, take less time so the companies
can make more
product, make more money on an annual basis. And also then if you start to
innovate, you can start
to create new jobs and then that all then helps create a better economic
environment for the region
and the UK and globally. So within that sort of drilling down, there's a
couple of different
areas we can look at. So innovating in partnership with companies and
businesses. So that's where
we can translate some of our knowledge that we have at the University, new
ideas can then go and
help make new products, make processes more efficient, more bio
sustainable, to help then
meet global challenges such as the sustainability of the planet. And then
thinking about the entrepreneurial
side of things, then you can start to think about taking some of our
innovations out to create new
startups, to create spin-out companies. And that's when you're taking new
knowledge out and creating
new entities to help solve current challenges that we are facing in our
everyday lives.
But then also that helps create jobs and helps then feed the economy so
then it starts to make
money, then it can start to grow and thrive and not just survive. So it's
feeding back that
circularity of growth. And Aline's mentioned the spin-out companies that
are coming out of the
research, being conducted at the University. There is a growing ecosystem,
isn't there,
in not only in the University, but in Greater Manchester, in this kind of
area where people may
believe that America is a sort of natural home for that kind of activity.
But Richard, can you
sort of give us some detail of how that's growing in this city?
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, people do think, "Oh, this only happens in the
States.” That's not true.
There's a very big kind of spin-out venture capital supported spin-out
scene in the UK.
And Greater Manchester is probably the biggest centre of that outside
Greater London and Oxford and Cambridge. So it's been growing very rapidly.
So there are,
kind of, some companies that have been going a while that have made a
difference. I think of
the late Paul O'Brien, a great chemist in the University, who sadly died a
few years ago.
But he had a great spin-out called NanoCo. Itt produced quantum dots. It
sounds really obscure,
but these are…, now loads of your televisions, electronic devices will use
these. And he developed…, did
some cool chemistry in the lab, worked out new ways of making these things.
Again, the driving
force there was actually a little bit environmental. These things weren't
entirely new, but most of
the quantum dots they're called. Most of these things had been
that involved toxic materials in a lead and cadmium. So he developed with
his team a bunch of new
routes to ones that were less toxic. And they've now made a big impact in
the market. And many of the…,
many of the mobile phones or televisions that use this technology will
draw back to that intellectual property that Paul invented a couple of
decades ago now.
And it's not just in nanotechnology, is it Aline? Life sciences and
environmental
Sciences… Do you know of other businesses that are coming out of Manchester
University that the general
public might hear about in years to come? Yeah, absolutely. There are
several companies that
are starting to come through the pipeline that are starting to flourish and
grow.
Erm, Holiferm is one example where it's looking to use natural sources. So
moving away from petroleum
based chemicals to create new biosurfactants. And then those surfactants
can then be used in
everyday products like shampoos and conditioners, and cleaning products. So
that's one company that's
starting to grow. Beenish Siddique has got a company AEH Hydrogel, that's
looking at using gel
products. So it's a new hydrogel type material which has got graphene
included in there and that's
looking at creating and allowing vertical farming in hot countries or in
urban environments to help
generate new food stocks to help feed a growing population. So there's lots
of different
companies and pockets coming up and through. And how do we encourage, you
know, the students and…,
especially in the research phase, to, I suppose, not leave Manchester and
go to other places.
There's work being done, isn't there, to foster that entrepreneurial drive?
Yeah, it's a really exciting time for the University as we build our
ecosystem and in our own
innovation. So one of the things that we just launched recently was the
Innovation Academy,
which is a cross-university initiative that brings together the Masood
Entrepreneurship Centre,
the University Innovation Factory and our Business Engagement team. And
it's all about
helping raise awareness, accelerating entrepreneurship and impact creation
and connecting people so we
can create a network to really help spread the word, but also then help
your mentor each other and
build up our entrepreneurial community. So we launched that initiative very
recently and we've got
several activities that are falling out from that. Webinars for lunching
and learning around
how to get involved with business engagement, how to go talk to companies,
how to partner with
them, how to engage and get your research connected within to solve an
industrial challenge.
And then thinking on the entrepreneurial side, we are looking at thinking
about how do you turn
your research idea into a potential commercial opportunity, how do you then
shape that into a
sort of a minimal value proposition so you can go out and talk to investors
to try to get
and raise some money to help then you generate the next phase of that
research that's moving
your research along that TRL (technology readiness level) pathway. So
there's lots of support out there that's really helping
engage and create a community within the University, but also more broadly
in Greater Manchester.
Can we just rewind a bit because Manchester has a huge track record in
innovation historically.
I mean how does that affect or influence to help what's going on today?
Well, I have a personal answer to this. I'm fascinated by the history of
innovation and the history of
science and technology. You know, Manchester has been a totally central
player in that and we're celebrating
a 200th anniversary. You just have to go back to Manchester in the 1810s,
1820s, and the first half
of the 19th century. Absolute ferment of innovation. You know there's all
sorts of modern industries
were being invented. But modern science has been invented here too. You
know you had people like
John Dalton inventing the idea of the atom, you had James Joule kind of
coming up with what were
the modern ways of thinking about energy. That of course was stimulated by
all the industrial
ferment at the time. So, it was really you know…, it was after that
environment that the Mechanics
Institute was formed in 1824, that we had the, you know, the medical school
formed in the same year. It was
really driven by these networks of people who were interested in all the
new science that was coming
Out, but you know that's what was driving the Industrial Revolution. I
think it's fascinating
that was happening in Manchester. You know in contrast if you think about,
you know, Cambridge
and Oxford at that time, you know, they were basically still training the
dim younger sons of the
aristocracy for positions in the church. It took a while for them to kind
of catch up with the idea
that science and technology were what a modern university ought to be
doing. So from that you know…
The Mechanics Institute, then going on into Owens College being founded by
by the industrialists
with a focus on things like chemistry, which was so important for the
industries of the time.
You know, you have the textile industry, you had die stuffs being invented
to go from the
tech to make the textile industry, and then you know out of die stuffs came
fine chemicals,
came pharmaceuticals. So you can kind of trace the family tree of
innovation. So innovation is in
the DNA of the founding of the University isn't it? It absolutely is that
you know right through
the whole idea that you could kind of formalise the way that you did
investigations that you know
this idea of research and development and a process that would allow you to
uncover more
innovations allowing you to get more you know to get more products. You
know and that goes right
through into the 20th century, you know, the great period of all the
engineering firms that and
you know, I'm sure we have to talk about computing at some stage, but you
know it was great.
Great to think about ‘Baby’, you know, the first stored-program computer
was – it wasn't just a fact that
this was invented by, you know, collaboration of electrical engineers and
mathematicians
working out to make this really world-changing discovery. You know, you had
Ferranti, as a big
electronics company, right there within a year or two taking that out and
commercialising it as
the first computers. So, right through the history of this University
there's been that
intimate link between new science, new technology, innovation.
Aline, I was going to say, does that…, You work with a lot of big
companies… So,
does the reputation of Manchester help in that respect, or, I mean,
companies come to the University
and have an awareness of this of this tradition? Yeah, absolutely. And I
think there's and because of
the reputation that Manchester has in terms of being innovative and working
collaboratively
in partnership with companies, it's a snowball effect so it really then
attracts other companies
in to see what they're missing out on and to see how they can engage. And
because we're set up
in such a way that we can fast track a lot of these types of interactions
and engagements
and we understand the needs of businesses and we know how to meet those
needs with and we've got
the great science technology biology medicine, and the arts and creative in
behind there to then
help bolster and support and actually because Manchester is so innovative
and has got that
relationship with businesses it's what attracted me to the University in
the first place. Not in
the 1800s I need to add! But, you know, 20 years ago that's, we were joined
and worked in the centre
that was across engineering, science, and pharmacy and medicine looking at
translating materials
knowledge into clinical applications and yeah, it's what attracted me and
has what kept me here,
and many others, today. Richard, your work spans the, sort of, regional
growth agenda, as well as
the science and technology side, so what…, you know, what's the
University's role in contributing
to the Greater Manchester and wider Northwest economy? Well, there's a
really important
direct role which comes from the kind of inventions that we have, but I
think there's a bit of a kind
of thought leadership role too and you know we hear a lot about
productivity and the problems
that the UK has in areas like productivity. Manchester hosts The
Productivity Institute,
the headquarters of this national institute that brings together people in,
you know, doing Business
Studies, people doing economics, and even one or two people, like me, who
are physicists who have
got interested in this. Yeah, so I mean I've been, I mean I, you know, my
own scientific career has always
Involved, you know, collaborations with companies trying to understand how
to, you know, how products
Were, how processes can be made better so I've kind of come at it from
seeing in my own research
how innovation is important but I've come to, to get involved again you
know
interdisciplinary is something that Manchester is really good at being able
to talk to economists and
people from the from the Business School about, you know, how we should
think about innovation and
productivity more widely has been really good, then I think you know the
other great thing about
Manchester has been the depth of the connection with the city and with the
city authorities and so
you know we've seen this period of Manchester really wanting to get on the
front foot after
you know, there's some deindustrialisation in the in the 80s, but you've
seen a City Council that's
been really committed to driving the economy and the University's been
really close to that. It's
been really part of those discussions all the time and that goes on, now
got combined authority
got an elected mayor, but you know I spend loads of time with the combined
authority helping them to
think about how to, how to make the economy better how to kind of bring
economic growth you know
right across the city region and indeed across the Northwest more, more
widely because Manchester's
role really should be you know the capital of the North. Yeah and I think
people watching this podcast
will, if they don't live in Manchester, will be aware of the really quite
striking physical
growth in the city and the University being so tightly to the centre of the
city you know is
it means that we as University are part of that and do you see a kind of a
relationship between
that - the image of the city - and the ability to attract, you know, the,
the brightest students, the
best researchers, and the most ambitious companies? Yeah, unquestionably.
People you know, people want
to come to Manchester is that sense of buzz and, you know, you see this in,
you know, we have new
sectors growing up. I mean AI is now turning into a really big new sector
it's, there's
you know, the AI.., the commercial AI sector now in Manchester is as big as
the one in Cambridge
it's, you know, second to London in England. So…, and, you know, that's the
kind of that, that's the kind
of economy that needs… I mean, maybe I'm being ageist, it does probably
need people who are younger than
Me, and even Aline, but it needs to attract young people who want to come
and you know start a career
in a place that's an exciting place to live where there are lots of people
that they can learn from
and you know hang out with, around them, and that's of course then that
brings companies that brings
big multinational companies that think, you know, there's a talent pool
here that we can exploit
and so that's something the University is kind of really a very important
part of. And Aline, do you
do you see a similar trend? People come into Manchester because they see a
growing city as well
As, you know, a top class university? Yeah I've been in Manchester for over
20 years now and I've seen it
change dramatically over that time period in terms of a city and how the
city interacts with
the university and it's really starting to come together and thrive so
we're hoping that Manchester
is going to be known for more than the football, over the next 10 years.
That it's going to
be known for the science, technology, creative, industrial innovation hub…
But, yeah, I think in terms of
the city there's a lot of activity, a lot of the entertainment and art
starting to really
grow and thrive and that whole combination just creates every buzz about
the city and it really
attracts people in that we have everything that a big capital city has. But
we don't have the prices
of London. So thinking about the growth of the city centre, the University
is playing, you know, a
very integral role in that is with the ID Manchester area which people may
have seen headlines
about but can we put some detail around that, Richard? Yeah absolutely, so
ID Manchester
is the name we give to the redevelopment of the North Campus, the old UMIST
campus, and I think it
was a really visionary decision by the University, probably a decade ago
now, to say, you know,
we're not just going to, kind of, sell that to the highest bidder, we're
going to really work to make
that a real hub of innovation. An innovation district.And so we're working
with, so we’ve had quite a
rigorous process to find a commercial partner because obviously this needs
really serious money
to build out, so we ended up forming this joint venture with Burntwood
SciTech.
Which I think has got a really great shared vision for what we both want
out of it, you know. We want
it to be a place where new businesses will come where existing businesses
will be attractive from
overseas or from the rest of the country to really make the most of you
know the people that we've
got in the University, the resources that we've got to create this idea,
you know, of an innovation
district so it's good it's a really big, you know, multi-year project. It's
going to take,
you know, a couple of billion pounds to develop out in full. So, we've had
to get, you know, really
major financial backing for this, Legal & General, you know, one of, just
one of the major
institutions that are supporting it. So we're working to kind of create
this vision of
a new part of Manchester that will be focused on innovation, it will have
very high value businesses
coming there, people will want to go there because there'll be this ferment
of ideas
a new thinking taking place, we want it to be very inclusive. We want it to
be you know open to the
rest of the city so people will come there and think you know this could be
for me too, I could
be taking part in this innovation economy. So it's really exciting we're
just about getting to the
the first tangible outcomes of it will be happening very soon and Aline has
been really driving
what that first outcome is going to be. So a lot of former students will
remember the big old
UMIST main building, is there a use being found for that? Yeah, so that's
the…, that's the
Renold building, so I remember teaching in there as well, it's going to be
the first building
that's going to open on ID Manchester Campus, so it's really exciting in
September it's going to
reopen its doors and it's going to be an incubation hub and it's…, so it's
going to be the beating heart
of the, the ID Manchester Campus. So we're going to have foundational
partners that are all there
to help really accelerate innovation. So, we're going to bring in a venture
capitalists, we're going
to bring in accelerator programs, some founding investor partners to really
help create sort of
wraparound care for entrepreneurs who want to come in and sit in that
building. So one of the
exciting aspects that we've been pushing and driving forward is the
creation of an innovation hub. It's
going to be a hot-desking area and a café, so a great coffee spot up on
north campus, and have lots
of soft seating so people can come in to the building and can network. If
you're an entrepreneur and
you’re founding a business or you've even got an idea that you want to turn
into something
commercial and explore it you can come in sit in one of the hot-desking
areas and you'll have
certain period of time where you have free access to the building and the
support that's going to
be there and provided and then as your business grows there'll be hands
being held as you move
through your commercialisation journey and start to gain funding then you
can just pay rental
operational costs so very much reduced costs to really help facilitate
engage entrepreneurs
and accelerate them on their on their journey so a real exciting
opportunity for staff and
students working in that space or even just got the ambition to work in
that space.
Super example of the crystallisation of the old traditional Manchester
University and the future-looking
university into the, you know, into the third century, and just within that
building.
And some of the lecture theatres that there have been kept and will be open
as conference venues
but also thinking about bringing the community in so it would be there to
host community events
bringing school children in to just help them be part of that ecosystem
explain a little bit
about the science engineering tech that's happening in that area and really
one of the successes of
ID will be for the sort of the local community to be inspired to then come
and work in and around
ID and or come into the University and gain qualifications so then they can
grow and flourish
again moving forward. Yeah I think it's going to be a real international
magnet you know we're
already seeing this interest from you know around the world about what
we're doing here you know
interest from you know particularly London the venture capital community in
London I think is
really starting to see the potential there you know it's just a short step
away from the railway
station so you know the idea is that that can be a real nucleus for all
those you know
people with money people with connections to come in and be part of this I
like another big part of
it that we can do in in Manchester that's difficult in other places is this
idea of scaling you know
the UK is pretty good at producing spin-out companies, it's not been great
at scaling them up
it's not been greater you know when the factories are built and the scaling
crisis.
It's really an investment isn't it? As a kind of a funding, traditionally
funding challenge?
Yeah, so I think you know that's something that we can do in Greater
Manchester you know we've
got space we've got development sites there's things like Atom Valley up in
Rochdale and Bury where you know if we get, we want to get that idea
there's this this smooth path
so we can you know get an idea into a spin-out you know do some stuff in
the lab, you demonstrate it
go to a pilot plant, get proof of principle, but then you know we'd like to
see this turning
into factories that are employing lots of people and really going back to
this question of how
do you boost the whole economy of the North. So that's the, that's the
vision, we really see
it as a driving force for the whole economy. And we've got a couple of
really good vehicles that
are helping kickstart those types of initiatives we've got the Turing
Innovation Catalyst, which
is focusing on digital and AI and helping bridge that gap between sort of
fundamental research and
commercialisation or company need, and also then they've got accelerator
programs to help
entrepreneurs or researchers to take their idea and turn them into
innovative new companies.
We've also got the innovation - no we don't. We've got the Industrial
Biotechnology Innovation
Catalyst, which is doing exactly the same but within biotechnology. And,
looking more broadly
across the Northwest. And we've got Pankhurst, which is doing that in and
around the health
tech area, and we've got the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre right
next door to ID Manchester
campus, which will help really translate and scale for this, anything
involving graphene. So I think
it's an exciting opportunity for the university that can help increases
interactions with businesses
increase our income into the university through that route. Community
engagement and outreach,
so helping with the social responsibility, helping with our
commercialisation and helping students
and staff commercialise, realise commercial opportunities from their
research. The graphene is one
discovery that Manchester University is known for, a lot of people would
have heard about its
its exciting potential, Richard could you give us a bit of background on
what graphene is
and what opportunities come from it? Yeah so graphene is a new form of
carbon,
so it's essentially a single sheet that's a single atom thick and the
carbon is bonded
you know the carbon atoms are bonded together in this hexagonal structure
and it's got some really
amazing properties the properties of electrons traveling in it are really,
I mean it's
complicated to go into but the electrons in a way behave as if they were
relativistic electrons
going at speeds close to the speed of light so there's kind of huge massive
conductivity if you
Like, so the electronic properties themselves are really strange and
bizarre. And then the mechanical
properties are fascinating too because this bond that carbon bond in a
sheet of graphene
that's pretty much the stiffest and strongest intra-atomic bond that we
know about so it was
you know a massive surprise and a massive delight when it was discovered by
Andre Geim and
Kostya Novoselov in the early 2000s. I mean, I remember at the time, you
know, thinking to myself…
You saw this huge explosion of activity across the world, people copying
this, people piling in to
see what they could do, you know, I think, you know, the Physics community,
we knew that, that was going
to get a Nobel Prize, you know, before it happened. So, it's been really
fascinating. And it's just
created whole areas of new physics, you know. I'll say that the electrons
behave in really new and
weird ways it's set off this huge race to look at other types of 2D
materials so other types of
materials that come in sheets, you know bizarre new properties like the way
that water gets
transported between the layers in graphene again, something that Andre Geim
has been really active in
pursuing. It's just a kind of complete scientific wonderland really and
amazing discovery. So the
thinnest strongest lightest material, known to us is that correct? And
Manchester's got some impressive
facilities hasn't it from that leading from that? Yeah absolutely so we've
got the
National Graphene Institute which is really concentrating on you know the
physics end of it
and you know this is still quite a long way from application some of the
more exotic
discoveries that people are making about how you get you know strange new
combinations of
particles that behave in strange new ways but then we've also got the
Graphene Engineering
Innovation Centre which is where you know, we're starting to see
applications come out now
particularly of the kind of new mechanical properties that it's fair to
say. Yeah I think one of the
things that's really exciting about graphene is that yeah there's still
fundamental science
being progressed from it but actually it's got a huge breadth of different
types of applications
due to its really unique properties ranging from additives in trainers to
make them more durable,
Stronger, and that was transferred from the university to a company. All
the way through to then being
the basis for spin out companies water purifications such as using the
hexagonal lattice structure
to help track ions then for water purification or looking at reinforcing
concrete. So, Concretene,
the new company that's raised a huge number of millions of pounds where we
can actually start
to pour concrete in large spaces that is more stronger, is more durable and
is more cost effective
as well. Well, I really like my graphene running shoes, I have a pair. Oh
do you? Yeah and the idea there is
you know, it's just how you get totally new properties so for example you
know shoes got rubber on the
bottom and there's always a trade-off you know is the rubber you know is it
sticky you know, how,
what's the friction like versus how hard wearing it is so you can get you
know very sticky rubber
but it wears out very quickly or you can get very hard rubber that kind of
doesn't work so
well. So graphene is one of the, you know graphene additives is one of
those places where you know you
can break that kind of trade-off so you kind of get sticky rubber but
actually is really hard
wearing and I say I'm very happy with that and the concrete examples fact
is really important. I mean,
the running shoes are great and people… They’re real world impacts aren't
they? Across a whole range of things.
Things taken from the lab some years ago and now coming out with all kinds
of… You know if you
if you go out to Kinder or Bleaklow, you'll see fell runners with graphene
on their feet quite,
quite regularly. but, yeah, the concrete one's fantastic though isn't it?
Because that's really,
you can see how that's going to make a really big environmental difference,
because, you know, cement
Is…, making cement is one of the biggest contributors to carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere one of the
hardest things to decarbonise. So, anything that you can do that reduces
the amount of cement you need
to use to get the same strength, that's going to have a massive impact. So,
I think, that's why
we're really excited about Concretene because, again, it's this, this kind
of magic dust element
to graphene that, you know, because it's a 2D material if you could
disperse it right, you just put the
tiniest amounts in and it will really substantially change the properties.
So that's the
sort of thing that I think people are getting very excited about. Yeah and
I think because graphene
was discovered here I think it attracted quite a lot of research investment
money into the area
for commercialisation, but also fundamental research so a lot of people
have got graphene now and
testing them in different composite materials so we got more than we got
two components so we've even
incorporated graphene into our hydrogels that we make and produce and we're
using the graphene as a
delivery platform for growth factors so it's goodies and instructive things
for sales to go on and
and replicate and do what they need to do so it's finding applications a
huge range or huge
breadth of research areas. And indeed in in sensors for actually implanting
in people… That's right, yeah
and electrodes for stimulating the treatment for a glioblastoma well
actually,
companies come out, a Manchester student founded a company and is working
on that, raised several
millions from Innovate for R&D funding and they're on a real growth
trajectory. Do you think that
we then, you mentioned that in a health context, do you think that we're
all we're on the cusp of an
explosion in health innovation you know in the next the next 10 or 20
years? Yeah I think so and
you know again like many innovations that they come from the crossfertilisation
at different areas, so the big, you know, the big cross-fertilisation in
health is going to be from
data from, you know, big sources of new data so we've got
UK Biobank is moving on to the campus so that's got this you know worldleading
collection of allows us to relate genomic information to the physiological
outcomes
we've got kind of really good connection with the health service so, so
this is again you know
where the city comes in Greater Manchester has a devolved health and social
care system so it now
has a digital care record so all the citizens health records can be
digitalised, so you can see
you can put together you know genomic information, health information that
comes from
you know from people's interactions with a health service and then you know
with the new
technologies of artificial intelligence and computer simulation you can
think of a real
transformation coming along. So we you know one of our colleagues is hugely
keen on this whole idea of
digital in silico medicine so you can just accelerate innovation process by
putting more and more of
it into the digital world you know because that's the thing that holds up
medical innovation isn't?
It’s you know how long it takes to get things tested and regulated. Yeah
and even on that testing and
regulatory pathway there's a lot of research and crossover between material
science and health
innovation and adding the digital AI machine learning aspect to that
thinking about creating
you know for personalized medicines creating taking stem cells from a
patient and then growing
those and doing sort of drug testing on them to find the exact right
cocktail of drugs that are
going to work for them in terms of treatment. In particular thinking about
cancer so helping
the materials side for building the in vitro, in vitro models then the data
analysis of that to
then translate very quickly back into patient treatment pathway to help
increase enhanced
quality of life moving forward so real crossover of disciplines and the
Pankhurst Institute is a
great hub for that activity. So, as the University enters its third
century, you know, what kind of
advances and achievements can we can we look forward to, Aline? So I think
I'm really excited about
the innovation agenda moving forward because the way the funding landscape
is changing a lot of
funding is now moving into translational work through Innovate UK but also
as the commercialisation
entrepreneurship side also increases in inward investment into our region
so for me I think it's
all about how do we as a community meet the current global challenges
whether that be the
sustainability of the planet thinking about how we interact and use
everyday products and how we
manufacture those from toothpaste to hair gels to creams and ointments to
help us live healthier,
longer lives and how we integrate all of those things and fast track them
using digital and AI.
Yeah I think you know the world faces quite challenging times at the
moment, I'm in the UK
faces challenging times, and I think there's pressure on the University to
respond to those
but I think the University is already there and it's already organised
itself, as Aline says. You know,
we've got, you know, a productivity problem which is, you know, an economic
problem that the nation,
as a whole, faces. We've got a problem of getting to net zero how do we
translate the energy economy
you know how can we properly do that in a way that's affordable, we've got
you know a health care
Issue, we want to keep our health care system sustainable and you know
we're in a dangerous
world and that keep keeping the nation safe is going to be more important.
So I think you know
there will be changes in that you know we have to respond perhaps more
urgently these challenges
than universities have done in the past I think The University of
Manchester is further down that
road than other universities and I think that's you know how we're going to
prosper in these
new times. You mentioned these large scale challenges facing us all does
the general public have to
fear the word innovation in that they may feel under informed about some of
the some of the
opportunities we've been talking about today? Yeah I mean innovation isn't
always positive
at the way that it works out in society and I think you know that's
something that in the
university we can, we can handle in two ways. One is I think you know we do
engage with our
community we do engage with the city and that engagement you know it's not
actually just about
going and you know thinking the public aren't educated enough about
education it's about listening
to what people want it's about understanding what society wants and you
know steering innovation
in ways that that do that and that needs you know we've got great social
scientists great
humanities scholars who are able to you know take a longer perspective on
innovation a wider
perspective about how it affects different groups how people feel about it
and I think
that's something that we can do as a big research university that covers
you know humanities and
social sciences, as well as science, technology, and medicine, to get the
kind of innovation that
people are going to trust. And that's, you know, that word - trust - is
really important. Something that
motivates a lot of the research that happens in the University - how do you
get people to trust it?
Aline, your take on this? Yeah, I completely agree with Richard and I think
one thing is
making sure that we have responsible innovation by talking and interacting
with our community
but also thinking about interacting with lobbying government in terms of
policy development
regulatory pathways as new modalities and new processing routes come in to
play, engineering
biology being one prime example, where we've got to kind of think in
advance of the technological
advances to make sure that we use them in a responsible way so working with
colleagues
in Humanities, Policy@Manchester, and really helping interact and influence
policy and government.
So thank you both to Aline and Richard for that fascinating discussion
about innovation,
commercialisation and the economy! To stay up to date with everything Talk
200 be sure to follow
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