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Dallas Campbell: Hello and
welcome to Outer Orbit.

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In these short little bonus episodes,
we're going to be continuing the

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conversation from our main episode,
focusing in on a particular topic

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or a particular point of view and
today we are back with Amy Peace.

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She's the Innovation Lead for
Circular Economy at Innovate UK to

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explore the importance of building a
strong, innovation ecosystem in the

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UK and supporting the development
of UK businesses to create a

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thriving future for our economy.

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Maybe you could start with  telling
our listeners what Innovate UK is.

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Amy Peace: Yeah, so Innovate UK,
people often know us for being

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the government innovation agency.

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So essentially a lot of people get grants
from Innovate UK for doing innovation

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activities, but hopefully by the end of
this, you'll realise there's probably

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quite a bit more to innovate than
just, please, can we have some money?

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We'd like to do something innovative.

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so we are part of the broader
UKRI, UK Research and Innovation.

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So along with all the research councils,
which do primarily academic focused

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funding, we do the bit which has always
got to have a business lead to it.

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Some of the things we do are all about,
as I say, getting government money to

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businesses, but also sometimes it's
about leveraging other people's money.

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So we have kind of this mantra
of inspire, involve, invest

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is kind of the Innovate way.

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Dallas Campbell: So, okay.

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So inspire, involve, invest.

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So inspire to make the opportunity
visible and compelling.

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So who are you making the opportunity
visible and compelling to?

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Amy Peace: Yeah so obviously
we get some businesses who are

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absolutely innovation focused.

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So you can imagine quite a lot of spin
outs from university who have literally

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just come out, we've got a great idea,
we think it's going to change the

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world, please can you help us grow?

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And actually sort of take an idea into
actually becoming something tangible.

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But also you get, you know,
you've got to acknowledge

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what's the starting point here?

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We've got a lot of businesses that
have been here around here for a

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long time, we've got an ecosystem of
places, people, society, organisations

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and actually inspiring the right
people to think of where are the

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innovative things we need to do?

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How can we improve our businesses,
the place and other organisations?

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And sometimes it's then how do we get the
people who've got the ideas matched up to

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the people who've got the opportunities
or the problems that need solving?

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Dallas Campbell: So it's a
bit of matchmaking as well.

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Amy Peace: Yeah, there's
definitely a bit of that in there.

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In fact, we've got a bit of Innovate
called Innovate UK Business Connect.

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It used to be called the
Knowledge Transfer Network for...

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Dallas Campbell: I remember.

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Amy Peace: ...for a while.

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So yeah their prime aim is
connecting innovators, academia

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and others in that space.

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Dallas Campbell: Give us a couple of,
you talked about, you know, dynamic

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people just left college and they're
all excited about changing the world.

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Give us some examples of projects.

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Amy Peace: Oh, we've had
so many exciting ones.

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I mean, in the space where I
operate, so circular economy, it

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covers so many different sectors.

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So, some of those are
really interesting things.

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I've been just looking, I'm trying
to think, what are some of the

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things in just this last week or so?

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So we've got one project, which is
looking at eye safe lasers and you

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think, okay, lasers, eye safe, well,
we were going there, but, if you think

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about all this stuff and machinery
we've got in the world, and normally

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when things get sort of end of life and
things, it's quite a bit of an onerous

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procedure to sort of clean things
up or try and sort of recycle them.

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So in circularity, we always want
to try and get to what we call

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the higher levels of circularity.

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So keeping things in operation
for as long as possible, sort

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of remanufacturing, repair.

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Now lasers have been around for ages.

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Everyone loves a good laser,
for cleaning and getting rid

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of dirt and grime off things.

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But if you accidentally shine it
in your eyes, they have a small

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problem of actually altering our
eyesight and being quite dangerous.

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Dallas Campbell: Don't want to do that.

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Amy Peace: So yeah, some of the lasers
that are used for cleaning at the

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moment, like if you're within, I think
it's like a kilometer and a half of

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them, they're considered to be a danger.

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So they have to be done in
very controlled environments.

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Whereas we've got this project with
Woodrow Scientific who are a fascinating

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little SME there who first sort of
developed this laser just in sort of a

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standalone device to say, well, actually
if we operate a different wavelength

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and some other bits of safety technology
in there, we can have something that's

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handheld and you can take to places where
Actually, you can do things in situ,

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like, so you can take bits of machinery
and clean it there in the plant, you

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could sort of get a building or a bridge
and actually take it out there and clean

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things and it's fascinating to see this
thing work, but our project we're doing

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at the moment, that they've just sort
of finished, I've been looking, well,

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how do we combine it with robotics and
visualisation techniques to go, that's

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all very well if a human's operating it,
but how do we put a random object that

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needs cleaning almost down a conveyor
belt and it to know what it is and what

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path the laser should take around it for
cleaning and make it a bit more automated.

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Dallas Campbell: And so,
is it a bit of everything?

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I mean, it's just

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Amy Peace: Lasers, robots, crazy cameras.

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Dallas Campbell: Just anything that's
going to make the world better.

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Amy Peace: Yeah, and one of my colleagues
likes to talk about kind of this stacked

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technology and I think that's where some
of the more interesting things we get here

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are, where we just say, we're not just
trying to fix one problem or tick one box.

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It's what if you combine the need for
sustainability with digitalisation,

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with the latest materials technology,
with the latest things in visualisation?

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And that's where you get some of the
really interesting innovations, but you

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often then need to get people who've
not worked together before, getting

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to know each other and that's, yeah.

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Dallas Campbell: Give us a little view
of what the sort of priorities are

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coming up for over the next decade
or so for you guys, what's the...

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Amy Peace: Yeah.

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So those who want to go into the
real depths of it, we do have a

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plan for action, which sort of gave
the outlook sort of going forward

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a bit into where we're going to be.

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We also, within our, I sit within a
materials and manufacturing team, we

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did a vision document going out to 2050,
which is not an industrial strategy.

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It's a very much a where could
we, should we be in that space?

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And then looking at those sort of
pathways of how do you get there?

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Because obviously some of the priorities
are things we've been talking about

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in the podcast around net zero, our
favorite buzzword, but equally, you

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can't just get to net zero in isolation.

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A lot of the things where we're
looking in circularity might not be

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for carbon purposes, you might be
doing it for resilience purposes.

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We want to save resources because it's
really hard to get them, because we saw

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in the pandemic, a lot of our supply
chains sort of fell down, not even when

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shipping tankers were getting stuck
in canals, you know, there was also

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sort of just, if a particular country
suddenly closes all its borders, you

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It has this sort of knock on effect
around the world of where you realise

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how connected our manufacturing is.

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So if you can try and sort of say that,
well, we still want to be a global

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manufacturing nation, but we want
to be able to be sure that actually,

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we've got a bit more security on that.

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We're not sending valuable stuff away
just because we can't be bothered

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to do something with it, you know,
we're keeping valuable things there.

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So resilience is one of the topics, and
being advanced and technology, sort of

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in things like digitalisation is still in
there as well, because some of these sort

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of benchmarks of technologies, lots of
sort of inspiring ideas come off them, but

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they're kind of the cross cutting things
that need to be sort of implemented.

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Dallas Campbell: If I have a
brilliant idea, can I send it to you?

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Amy Peace: I mean, some people do, but
we have a very open and transparent

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operation for getting funding.

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So yeah, most of our sort of funding
people come out are these open

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competitions that we have open.

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So a lot of people will be aware
of our smart program and that's

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literally any innovation idea
within these sort of various terms

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and conditions in small print can
be applied for on a rolling basis.

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But then we have more thematic programs
and we've, for the last few years

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been running these industrial strategy
challenge funds and that's where we take

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a much more thematic view of what are
some of the really big problems that

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we want to get tangible outputs for and
tackled within a set amount of time.

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So an example there was smart, sustainable
plastic packaging, which was, you know,

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obviously trying to tackle the issue of
sort of ocean and pollution associated

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with, plastics and have a look at, not
just how do we recycle that plastic

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better, but again, those hierarchies of a
circular economy and saying, how do we get

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much more reuse, communities and society?

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Dallas Campbell: The best innovation
I always find, I work sometimes

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with a group called Teen Tech and
we're going to schools and that we

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do competitions and they come up
with brilliant, innovative ideas.

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A lot of plastic bottles and oceans
comes up, but they always have like

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amazing ideas for things, the 10 year
old brain is that's where you want to.

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Amy Peace: It's absolutely fascinating
things you kind of get from that although

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I suppose one of the issues we sometimes
get is when sort of people see the things

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that are headlines and kind of sometimes
just jump to the sort of first idea

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of, Oh, ocean plastics is a problem.

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Oh, if only we made everything out of
bottles, then we could be sustainable.

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So, you know, there's a lot of industries
like in textiles and clothing and

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furniture and other places, you'll
see them making big sustainability

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claims because we're made out of a
hundred plastic bottles or similar.

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The problem with that is, in order to make
the bottle industry sustainable, they want

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the bottles back and actually, the best
thing you can do with a PET bottle is make

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it into another one and in some ways, it
can be a bit of a get out of jail card in

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sort of saying, Oh, we'll just use that
waste in order to make our product from.

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So we do need to be a little bit careful
and again, thinking are we actually being

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more sustainable or are we just using
something that sounds more sustainable.

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Dallas Campbell: Yeah, got it.

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Hey, listen, Amy, thank you so much
for coming on and for illuminating us.

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It's inspiring stuff.

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Your, whoever came up with your Inspire,
Involve, Invest little catchphrase,

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they got it pretty bang on, I think.

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Amy Peace: Yeah, there's an
awful lot of stuff going there.

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So I'd say if anyone hasn't engaged
with Innovate before, if you

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just sort of Google Innovate UK
Business Connect, as I say, the bit

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that used to be KTN, they have a
newsletter, which you can sign up to.

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So you can say which sort of topics
you're interested in, because say even

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if you're not specifically looking for a
grant, we also have like loans programmes,

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we do things like knowledge transfer
partnerships where you get people from

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academia, being able to work in your
business and then there's a load of sort

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of things matching with private investors
or just helping you get your idea out.

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So do sign up for that because, I'm sure
there's plenty of other ways that Innovate

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can help you that, as I say, it's not just
about, please, can we have some money?

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Dallas Campbell: Thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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Amy Peace: Pleasure.

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Dallas Campbell: To hear future episodes
of In Orbit, don't forget, subscribe on

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your favourite podcast app, and to find
out more about how space is empowering

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industries in between episodes, you
can visit the Catapult website, or

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you can join them on social media.