1Professor Peter Landshoff

If you are trained as a physicist

you can do anything!

2Professor Peter Landshoff

This is an expanded version of a talk I gave at a Microsoft symposium in Italy in December

They chose the title for me!

3Professor Peter Landshoff

Business and academia need to work together

• Europe cannot compete with Asia in activities that need low-level skills

• Very soon China will produce more PhDs than Europe

• We need to make the fullest possible use of our hi-tech skills

• We need to improve our education – but it must be the right education

Who am I to talk about this?

University of CambridgeCentre for Mathematical Sciences

5Professor Peter Landshoff

• Project cost: $100 million

• Contribution from industry: $200k

Companies have to justify expenditure to their shareholders --- but surely mathematical science is important to industry?

Is

444 3333 + 4

divisible by

5 ?

http://nrich.maths.org180000 regular users

So much depends on mathematics

Companies are reluctant to fund it(Though Microsoft has been generous)

It’s up to governments to fund education

BUT …

In 2003 more than12000 students have began Psychology degrees in the UK

That is more than twice physics+chemistry

Industry must help convince children that whatIt does is interesting

9Professor Peter Landshoff

Europe needs to catch up with the US

• Bill Gates (Microsoft)

• Gordon Moore (Intel)

Both are American!

Professor Peter Landshoff

Cambridge-MITInstitute

11Professor Peter Landshoff

CMI Phase 1

• Began work in 2000

• $100 million government grant

• Independent company owned jointly by CU and MIT

Collaborations to teach Cambridge to be more entrepreneurial

CMI Strategy

3 strategic thrusts:

Education

Research

Knowledge exchange with industry

13Professor Peter Landshoff

Knowledge exchangeUniversities provide companies with a

window on the world and a stimulus for innovation

• Workshops• Continuing education for personnel• Secondments (both directions)• Recruitment possibilities• Help with specific problems

14Professor Peter Landshoff

Universities get

- Funding – must include proper overhead

- Stimulating new problems and challenges,

- Can lead to new fundamental understanding (eg Pasteur)

Current KICs

• Silent Aircraft • Systems Biology • Communications Innovation Institute • Centre for Competitiveness and Innovation• Quantum information theory • Ageing infrastructures

(KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION COMMUNITIES)

16Professor Peter Landshoff

Proposed new KICsEnergy sustainability

Product realisation

Financial Innovation

Personalised Healthcare

Creative Industries

Nanotubes and MEMs

Transport

CMI PHASE 2

17Professor Peter Landshoff

Everything in transport needs data

• Give passengers more confidence to use public transport

• Help operators plan their systems

• Help government decide how to distribute the spend

18Professor Peter Landshoff

Examples of questions

• Why do people use trains?• What drives rail performance and costs?• What is the relationship between use of

transport and the growth of the economy?• Are we getting value for money from the

transport spend?• How to balance economic and

environmental considerations in decision making?

19Professor Peter Landshoff

Examples of data

• Entry gates at car parks and rail stations• Sensors in highways• CCTV cameras in cities• Demographic data• Pollution data• Weather• Whole-journey information for rail or air

passengers

20Professor Peter Landshoff

The software

• Federate existing data

• Owners retain control and responsible for accuracy and updating

• Security is important

• Different users need different levels of access

21Professor Peter Landshoff

Consortium

• Computer scientists and experts on transport

• Transport operators • Public bodies

Cambridge Edinburgh Leeds NewcastleImperial College and University CollegeSouthampton

Master’s degrees

Combine technical material

e.g. computational biology

nanotechnology

with 48 hours of lectures on

management

and send students into industry for

part of the course

23Professor Peter Landshoff

What are the problems?

• There needs to be benefit for both the company and the academics

• The relationship must be managed• People in companies keep shifting jobs• Legal departments must be kept under

control• IP issues often loom large• Short - termism

Warning!

1927: Dirac predicted the positron

60 years later:

Positron Emission Tomography

You never know what is going to be useful

26Professor Peter Landshoff

Zebra fish and cosmology

People often do not realise they have invented something useful

The more radical the invention the more uncertainIts application eg computers!