Technology Translation Fellow

The initial IPS Fellowship period (2015-2019) has demonstrated the value of having a dedicated Knowledge Exchange professional embedded within the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Manchester. Outcomes have included: 81 new awards (£30M value) under knowledge exchange (KE), innovations and impact funding schemes; an uplift in the number of STFC-funded academics engaged in such schemes from an average of 6.5 over 2014 to 28 in 2018; £7.69M income leveraged direct from industry and other non-academic partners; filing of six patents and incorporation of three new start-up companies.
The University's Research Strategy sets out our ambition to be distinguished by our interdisciplinary research, for training outstanding researchers and giving parity of esteem to discovery, application, knowledge exchange and impact. We aim to be the partner of choice for business and other external organisations worldwide through the quality and focus of our research and the efficiency of our outward interfaces. When our work has impact beyond academia and yields economic, social and cultural benefits, we strive to maximise that opportunity. This 2-year extension to the STFC IPS Fellowship will be the final phase in transitioning from a partially supported post, to one fully funded by the University. The role of Technology Translation Fellow exists to work in close proximity with academic researchers in STFC-funded areas, including astronomy & astrophysics, accelerator science and technology, and nuclear and particle physics. Unlike other KE and Impact support roles, including the University's central business engagement team, the Research Impact Support Officers, and the strategic funding team, this role requires the specialist knowledge and skills of a physicist with experience of working in academic and industrial research. The Fellow draws upon this skill-set, and their understanding of both environments, to seek out opportunities for collaboration between academic and non-academic groups, for commercial exploitation of research, and the progression of impact to non-academic beneficiaries. The academic sector has shifted in recent years towards more industrial collaboration, and greater accountability of the wider socio-economic outcomes of research. This began with the inclusion of non-academic impact in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework assessment, and is now embedded in government policy via the Industrial Strategy. As STFC-funded research is often the most fundamental science, and furthest from market, this role is particularly necessary to support researchers in these groups in finding the opportunities for commercialisation and non-academic partnership.