Application for extension of IPS Fellowship for Michael Simmons

The UK government has prioritised transfer of knowledge and technology from academic research groups into industry in order to boost the UK economy. One mechanism for helping this process is to employ Innovation Fellows, based in Universities, who work with the researchers and industry partners to commercialise research outputs. In this proposal we seek support for an extension to the support of the Fellow based at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. We request 25% of his salary, having raised the remaining fraction elsewhere. The Fellow will aid researchers in bringing software and detectors developed at Cambridge into use outside of the laboratory. One major area will be medical research, where the Fellow has already launched two successful projects to help with the diagnosis and cure of cancer. These projects are collaborations with Addenbrookes Hospital, and this partnership will also bring forward new ideas to make use of proton beams to cure cancer. A major area of STFC expertise is with software for very large data-sets, as required by the Large Hadron Collider and the Square Kilometer Array (a very large radio telescope). The Fellow will attempt to find new areas of application for the techniques used by the researchers.

The Fellow will also work closely with Cambridge Enterprise and other partners to forge closer links between the University researchers and industrial players. All of these activities will ensure that the taxpayer and UK economy gain maximum benefit from the investment in cutting edge research.