On Thursday evening, I gave a short talk at a meeting of Advantage West Midlands Innovation and Technology Council and their materials constituency. I have to admit that I didn’t make a very good job of it. The week had been busy and I hadn’t prepared sufficiently - and then the travel from an afternoon meeting in London to the hotel venue in the middle of Birmingham went badly. I ended up arriving with about 5 minutes to spare and just wasn’t ready. In partial apology to those who heard me, this post is an attempt to frame the argument more coherently!!   more »

I had a really interesting meeting at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) yesterday. This was a result of a combination of meetings over the last year when they have engaged with us on the concept of the Materials Property Validation Centre. It culminated in a discussion after the last Board Meeting and an invite to go and discuss our ideas.   more »

Earlier in the week I went to one of the always excellent NESTA Breakfasts to see Henry Chesbrough talk about Open Innovation and its effect on policy. Followers of this blog will know that I have talked about Open Innovation before and I continue to be fascinated about the use of models to explain organisational behaviour.   more »

Yesterday saw the launch of the Materials for Energy Working Group Strategic Research Agenda at Tate Britain. There were about 150 people there and strong support from just about every conceivable stakeholder. Wyn kicked off the meeting by introducing Sir Brian Bender, the Permanent Secretary of BERR, who was followed in turn by David Clark, the soon-to-be CEO of the Energy Technologies Institute, Iain Gray, the only-just CEO of the Technology Strategy Board, John Wand, the Director of the Materials Programme at the EPSRC and Nick Otter of Alstom Power.    more »