eFuturesXD - crossing the boundaries

An EPSRC workshop (ICT research - the next decade) held in October 2010 recognised the need for ICT communities to shape future capability. In order to help achieve this goal in the electronics community over the coming years, eFuturesXD will offer awards to support UK academics in electronics as they initiate collaborative research across their discipline boundary. This tends to be research of a high risk, high return kind. Modest awards allowing immediate progress will be an efficient way to sift numerous options and to promote the best ideas. The outcome will be a collection of short studies, which will include varying levels of promise. This will help inform the electronics community where ICT research should be heading. By offering a response to award requests within one month of applying, this cross-disciplinary account will give the agility necessary to compete on the global stage. Four kinds of award will be offered: travel award (< £5k); meeting award (< £10k); facility award (< £20k); and staff award (< £50k). These awards will offer the opportunity to scope new initiatives rapidly and to assemble the best team for longer larger research programmes. The cross -disciplinary account will be facilitated by the existing electronics community network eFutures, building on its established infrastructure and network of technical expertise. It will also be a way of adding value to the eFutures network. The cross-disciplinary account will be publicised through community meetings and the eFutures web pages. A condition of obtaining an award < £15k will be to give presentations at community events. By linking the cross-disciplinary account to eFutures it will be possible to help build the best consortia for longer larger research programmes using the network's links to the academic and commercial sectors. The application process will involve completing an on-line form which will cover summary, objectives, academic partners, funding requested and strategic alignment. Rapid assessments will be made by two experts: one from electronics and one from the other relevant discipline. A review panel will be held monthly when decisions will be made and then communicated to applicants. The eFutures steering group, comprising academic, commercial and public sector representatives, will review the distribution and balance of awards across strategically important areas where the UK may take a future lead. Success will be seen by measuring the follow-on funding by those obtaining awards. It will also be judged by looking at the overall ICT portfolio. Examples of success include a more coherent range of research topics within electronics and a visibly stronger engagement between electronics and the rest of ICT. To assess the effectiveness of awards a follow-up check will be made at least 6 months after each award is complete.

The eFuturesXD account sets out to encourage and support the initial stages of cross-disciplinary research through a variety of small awards. The intended outcome will be a number of speculative scoping studies carried out across the boundaries of electronics and other disciplines within ICT. Some will be successful while others will show that further progress is not possible. In this way, the ICT community will be in a strong position to identify emerging research topics with economic and social impact at an early stage. Therefore, the ICT research community itself will be a beneficiary of eFuturesXD. The cross-disciplinary account will also be of benefit to those involved in the public sector forming future policy for funding research, which can be assessed in the light of this evidence. It will give credibility to the ICT community to lobby for greater research support in areas defined by the most successful scoping studies. The scoping studies will in some cases identify synergies between existing disciplines and lead to a closer cooperation between these experts. This may then lead to commercialisation of established research strengths in hitherto unforeseen areas of application to the benefit of the UK economy. This could be through existing UK companies who can readily exploit the research or through the launch of spin-out companies. In other cases totally new areas of research will be uncovered to be explored. These areas are likely to be more risky and long term in nature, but with the potential of a higher economic return as there is a higher likelihood of a global lead. Increased recognition globally of electronics research in the UK will lead to further inward investment contributing additional wealth creation.
Impact will also be in evidence in the people pipeline. Cross disciplinary research will improve the skill set and mobility of researchers, particularly those involved in the execution of scoping studies or having extended visits to laboratories across a discipline boundary. Cross disciplinary research means learning new skills in a different area or applying existing skills in a new way. This will make researchers more aware of, and confident with, their transferable skills and so of greater value to the ICT Community.

The potential to generate new knowledge at the boundary of disciplines is enormous. This will lead to a greater body of understanding generated from the successful new research that is anticipated to emerge from work initiated by eFuturesXD. Some of this will lead on to IP protection for future exploitation in the UK whilst in other cases the accumulation of know-how will be the more valuable commodity.