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FEATURE SITraN Look at Me! Women in Engineering FEATURE Academics & Industry: University Spin-outs SPOTLIGHT Engineering Issue 03 / August 2013
FEATURE
SITraNLook at Me!Women in Engineering
FEATURE
Academics & Industry:University Spin-outs
SPOTLIGHT
Engineering
Issue 03 / August 2013
Discover opens the door to a world of innovation and invention, where researchers at the University of Sheffield and their partners in the private, public and third sectors are collaborating to find real world solutions to real world problems. From the local to the global, these partnerships are where the energy, enterprise and drive of the wider community is harnessed to the cutting edge talents of the University’s academic teams: discovering solutions together.
EdITOR
Rachel Latham [email protected]
dIScOvER TEAm
Emma Willis, Assistant Editor [email protected]
Sarah Want [email protected]
STAFF WRITERS
John Yates [email protected]
cREATIvE dIREcTIOn
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cover: Bringing together computer science and engineering, the EPSRC funded Pipe Dreams project is researching the prevention of water-borne diseases as well as maximising the performance of the buried pipe infrastructure within the UK’s ageing water distribution system.
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dIScOvER — Economic and societal benefit through research and collaborationIssue 03 — August 2013
dIScOvER — A new world
WELCOME 04
BriEfing – news & Views 06
SITran 08
inSiDE ViEWLook at me! 10
SPOTLigHT Engineering Special 12 Industry collaborations 13 Sheffield Engineering Gateway 14 Women in Engineering 15
fEaTurES Floreon 16 cities of the Future 18 modelling the Brain 19
BriEfing – news & Views Engineering Special 20
fEaTurE Smart cities 22
fEaTurESpin-outs 24
fEaTurEUncovering Life 26
day in the Life 28
EnGInEERInG
mEdIcInE, dEnTISTRy & HEALTH
ARTS & HUmAnITIES
ScIEncE
SOcIAL ScIEncES
ISSUE THREE
LIvInG WALL SySTEmS designing urban rooftop gardens
guiDE.Articles in Discover fall into five broad subject areas denoted by the icons below.
Above: Taken on a field trip in California, Moritz Muschick - a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences - took this award-winning image of a stick insect, almost but not quite, camouflaged against its host, the redwood tree. The photo was judged to be the overall winner of the inaugural Ecology Image competition by open access journal, BMC Ecology.
Photo credit ©Moritz Muschick inSiDE BaCK COVEr
Since 2009, Professor nigel dunnett has designed innovative gardens for the chelsea Flower Show. This year’s ‘Blue Water Roof Garden’ sponsored by The Royal Bank of canada received the coveted Gold medal award. It is an exciting vision of an urban rooftop garden that integrates recreational space as well as having benefits for the local habitat. The garden explores the potential of ‘skyrise greening’, bringing trees, meadows and wetlands into the heart of the densest of cities, while addressing the important issue of urban water management.
The expertise of Professor Dunnett, along with his colleague Professor James Hitchmough, also hit the headlines last year as the designers of the UK’s largest ever man-made wildflower meadows at the London 2012 Olympic Park.
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dIScOvER — Economic and societal benefit through research and collaborationIssue 03 — August 2013
dIScOvER — Welcome
WOrDS.Professor mike Hounslow
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engineering and leading the faculty’s growth to become the best in the UK
‘As academics, engineers are intellectual magpies – they instinctively pick up ideas from other disciplines in their quest for solutions. They like to work across their own specialisms and with those from other disciplines. And, while they are driven by an insatiable curiosity, they are also motivated by seeing the impact their solutions and designs will have on their fellow citizens and the environment in which they live.’
Professor Mike Hounslow
Welcome to the third edition of Discover, a magazine that celebrates how the University of Sheffield collaborates and engages with the private, public and community sectors to enhance the lives of people in our city, the wider region and across the world. The University is determined not only to pursue cutting edge research but to do so in a way that translates this knowledge into real world solutions to real world problems.
Engineering is a fantastic discipline and does immense good for people and society. And, as this issue of Discover illustrates, there is no better place to be an academic engineer carrying out collaborative research than Sheffield. This is a University and a city with a rich heritage of innovative engineering. As a University we are building on that tradition to create a global brand that attracts the best and brightest academics and students from around the world.
It is no accident that the University of Sheffield recently toppled Cambridge in the research funding league tables, making us second only to Imperial College London, who we now have in our sights. This research funding is not about money: it is about excellence. Our position at the apex of the research-funding tree reflects the national and international quality of the research carried out here in Sheffield. It also reflects the impact our research teams are having in the wider world.
As Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon says elsewhere in this edition, engineering is a profession that cares about people – there is virtually no engineering that isn’t about people in one way or another. The equipment used by consultants and nursing staff in hospitals around the world, for instance, will have been designed and engineered to sustain life and help heal the sick and injured.
This process of innovation, problem solving and design does not happen in isolation. Engineers are great team players. They know that solutions are best found in teams.
The articles in this edition of Discover show our ability and eagerness to forge relationships with partners in the private sector and with other universities and faculties. We also show how we support the work of regional players such as Yorkshire Water; how we are strengthening our strategic partnerships with world class companies such Siemens, Boeing and Costain; and how our research is the engine driving innovation in regional SMEs.
But here at Sheffield we are doing this in a way that brings benefits to all our students. We are using the experience and knowledge gained from these research partnerships to transform the teaching of our undergraduates, creating a virtuous spiral in the education of the engineers of tomorrow. Here at Sheffield research and teaching are not distinct disciplines or separate fields of endeavour – they completely interdigitate. And that is why our engineers are so good.
Soon it will not be the only reason. We are currently investing more than £150 million in new buildings to provide our people with the facilities they need to continue to excel. The new graduate school, to be completed this year, and the new engineering building itself, will liberate minds to think great things, and liberate space in our older buildings to give us space to grow and develop as an institution that aspires to lead the country in the field of engineering. We know we face challenges. And none more daunting, perhaps, than the need to include in our activities that half of the population who
are so under-represented in our field: women. As an intellectually rigorous discipline, it makes no sense to me that we deny ourselves access to half the brains in the country.
Our goal is not only to make the University of Sheffield the number one choice for research funding, but also the number one choice for women – whether that is young female undergraduates embarking on a career; graduates seeking to develop their research interests; or women academics looking to inspire today the engineers of tomorrow. These are bold ambitions, but Sheffield is both bold and ambitious, as our past and our heritage has shown, and as our future is sure to prove.
iMagE.The new engineering building at Jessops East
GUT FEELInG early identification
cHAnGE FOR THE BETTER official handbook
BRIEFInG — News & Views
dIScOvER — Economic and societal benefit through research and collaboration
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A gene which stops labour occurring too early has been identified by scientists and could pave the way for new treatments to prevent premature births.
The ground-breaking research is being led by Dr Neil Chapman from the University of Sheffield’s Medical School in collaboration with a team of multidisciplinary researchers from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Universities of Newcastle and Nottingham.
“Our research is a major step forward in unlocking the mysteries behind the processes of normal labour,” said Dr Chapman. “We have shown that the inflammation of the uterus switches off the genes which stops labour occurring too early.
“Understanding how to prevent this inflammation or how to stop it blocking those key genes needed to stop contraction of the womb would lead to new treatments to prevent premature births.”
The research was conducted in the Academic Unit of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine and was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Jessop Wing Ellen Webster Legacy.
Thousands of sufferers from an immune disease triggered by eating gluten found in wheat, rye and barley products are to be helped by a newly formed team of international experts at a dedicated research centre in Sheffield.
The Sheffield Institute of Gluten-Related Disorders (SIGReD) brings together some of the world’s most distinguished researchers and academics who will collaborate on pioneering work into the early identification and treatment of coeliac disease, a condition where a person has an adverse reaction to gluten.
If left untreated, it can cause serious health problems. The only known treatment is by a lifelong strict adherence to a gluten-free diet.
“The Institute will bring together global expertise so that we can share learning, encourage collaboration and innovation and become a research powerhouse with the aim of improving the diagnosis and care for hundreds of people who may be living with this disease undiagnosed,” said Professor Marios Hadjivassiliou, a consultant neurologist for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and a co-founder of the new Institute.
Fellow Institute founder and a colleague at the Trust, Professor Dave Sanders, added: “Patients will also be able to benefit from newer tests which may improve the diagnosis of those with symptoms that are not associated with the bowel as well as patients who have so-called ‘non-coeliac gluten sensitivity’, when they have an almost normal small bowel biopsy but still seem to improve with the diet.”
Research to date has been funded by Coeliac UK, Ataxia UK, BRET and Ryder-Briggs charitable fund.
Business leaders who want to change people and society for the better while also improving the bottom line have a new handbook to guide them, thanks to a team of experts at the management School.
“By providing a framework for businesses to understand how to drive social change, the book provides the tools necessary for businesses to effectively achieve change” said lead author Dr Ute Stephan. Written along with Dr Malcolm Patterson and Ciara Kelly, all of the University of Sheffield’s Management School, the framework provides an overview of the 19 mechanisms companies can use to drive positive behaviour change as well as the three conditions necessary for changing people’s behaviour: motivation, ability and opportunity.
Whether you’re an electric utility provider asking people to use less energy or a grocery store encouraging people to buy healthy food, businesses play a key role in driving social change. This research was funded and intellectually supported by the Network for Business Sustainability, Canada.
http://nbs.net/knowledge/stakeholder/social-change/executive-report/
One in 100 people are affected by coeliac disease – but for every one patient diagnosed because of bowel symptoms, eight remain undiagnosed.
cLImATE cHAnGE the view from space
A space mission designed with the support of a University of Sheffield expert on the earth’s carbon balance will be launched into the atmosphere to record valuable data on the way the world’s forests affect climate change and global warming.
The €400-million Earth Observation mission, funded by the European Space Agency and scheduled for take-off in 2019, will measure global forest biomass for the first time and produce accurate maps of tropical, temperate and boreal forest biomass from space.
Physicist Professor Shaun Quegan, who conceived the concept for the mission eight years ago and is one of the principal investigators, said: “Understanding how the amount of living material – biomass – in our global forests changes over time is necessary for improving present and future assessments of the global carbon cycle, and therefore our climate.”
Professor Quegan is a principal investigator for the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) research centre, which funded the feasibility testing stage of the mission.
cHILdBIRTH premature gene
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Source: The University of Sheffield Media Centresheffield.ac.uk/news
iMagE.istock ©dimdimich
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That her dream is now a reality is largely the result of what she calls “a magical combination of people who got behind the idea” and helped raise more than £15 million in private donations. Some of the benefactors were wealthy individuals who not only gave large sums, but who also worked tirelessly to ensure she reached her goal.
Others were people who did remarkable things to raise money – from skiing to the South Pole to repeating William Bligh’s journey from Tonga to Timor – to help defeat a disease that has devastated the lives not only of those afflicted by it, but also their families, friends and colleagues.
“I never imagined that something so magical could happen. Very early in my medical career I came to understand how terrible this disease was, and how it has a shattering impact not only on the sufferer but also on their family and friends,” Professor Shaw adds.
Four years since that conversation with her patient, Professor Shaw and her team are at the forefront of finding therapies and treatments for the disease. It is a measure of their success that, since the new building was officially opened by the Queen two years ago, it has tripled the annual amount of research funding.
She attributes this success to a number of factors, but not least to the physical and cultural openness of the new institute which she believes stimulates and facilitates collaboration between scientists and clinicians.
“In the past, we had good facilities but our research teams were scattered at some distance from one another. Now we bump in to one another all the time. SITRaN is a truly multi-disciplinary environment where teams form to find solutions. Sheffield is so good at that.”
When one of Professor Pam Shaw’s patients asked her if she were given £20 million how would she spend it to find a cure for one of the world’s most devastating diseases, the distinguished neurologist thought she was just being asked a polite question to pass the time.
But she was wrong. Her patient, one of the more than 5,000 people in the UK who suffer from motor neuron disease (MND), was the wife of an eminent obstetrician at St Mary’s Hospital in London and an experienced fundraiser for healthcare causes.
“I thought about it for a few seconds before saying how I would build a dedicated research institute where we would have clinicians and scientists working together under the same roof,” Professor Shaw said as we met in the light-filled atrium of the recently built Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN).
“I told her I would have a team of people with a diverse range of skills because this is a very complicated disease and that I would have a building with lots of natural light coming in and the very best facilities so that we could attract the best people from around the world,” she added. “And that was my vision in the very unlikely event that someone would give me £20 million.”
She cites a recent clinical project called Head Up, which was set up to design a much more comfortable and cosmetically acceptable supportive collar for patients whose neck muscles are impaired by the disease. “One of our colleagues Dr Chris McDermott has brought together a team including clinicians, patients, nurses, physiotherapists, fashion designers, and bio-material engineers, who have now designed a prototype collar which will soon go in to production.” The result will be a medical device that improves the quality of life of the patient – which is a key part of the institute’s work.
The other aspect is the search for therapies and cures, and one of those leading this quest is Professor Mimoun Azzouz, who is one of the world’s leading experts in the development of gene therapies for motor neuron disease. Professor Azzouz has been extremely successful in attracting an array of scientific awards including the prestigious European Research Council’s Advanced Investigator Award - a top level EU award which acknowledges his pre-eminence in European biomedical research. “This institute is the right place, with the right people at the right time”, says Professor Azzouz. “As a result, we are attracting a lot of interest from medical companies around the world who are beginning to take an interest in the less common diseases such as MND. But MND is only seen as less common because it kills its victims so quickly. Our aim is to improve these survival rates dramatically.”
www.sitran.dept.shef.ac.uk
‘This institute is the right place, with the right people at the right time.’Professor Mimoun Azzouz
FEATURE — SITraN
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InSIdE vIEW — Look at Me!
“I know I’m 85 so I know I am classed as an old woman. But I don’t really feel like an older woman, even when I’m hobbling about because my knee’s got arthritis in it,” said Hermi, who was born in vienna and moved to Sheffield with her husband after the Second World War.
Hermi was one of the participants to join creative workshops held to find out how older women feel about their representation in the media and society. The project entitled ‘Look at Me! Images of Women and Ageing’ was led by Dr Lorna Warren, from the Department of Sociological Studies and part of the one of the largest cross-council funded research programmes on ageing ever mounted in the UK; entitled New Dynamics of Ageing. Dr Warren says: “Since the initial workshops, we have taken our findings – and the amazing women who took part in our photo sessions – to local schools to try and educate younger children to see the person and not the age of the person. Visual images affect our sense of self from a young age and if we are to get past stereotypes, we need to tackle ageism head on in the curriculum.”
The New Dynamics of Ageing Programme and Age UK are holding a research showcase on 21 October 2013 to share latest findings and demonstrate how research can have a real impact on improving life for older people.
www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/showcase www.representing-ageing.com
PHOTO.Rosy martin
Issue 03 — August 2013
IndUSTRy cOLLABORATIOnS Yorkshire Water
Water researchers at the University of Sheffield are developing strong strategic partnerships with many of the leading companies in the UK water industry.
With projects ranging from fundamental to applied research, the University now has a diversity of activities and sponsorship that has led to it being acknowledged as a leading authority on water and environmental sustainability.
The interdisciplinary Pennine Water Group (PWG), for instance, has grown over the last 12 years to become the largest team of its kind in the country with relationships spanning the sector, including a longstanding partnership with Yorkshire Water.
“We now have a second strategic partnership with Yorkshire Water which looks at both clean and waste water infrastructure. However, both parties have been looking to broaden that partnership as the company has been re-defining its direction around an evolving set of strategic business objectives,” said Professor Joby Boxall of the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering and the Research Manager leading the PWG’s strategic programme of research into potable water distribution systems.
“We are mapping out how we can engage with them in a way that helps realise their strategic business objectives,” Professor Boxall added. And while it is still early days, two projects involving the Management School are soon to get underway – the first of which will look at the efficiency of the supply chain and how it affects the company’s desire to reduce its carbon footprint.
The PWG’s expertise was recently recognised with the award of an unprecedented third round Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Platform grant worth £1.4 million to help expand its research activity. In addition, the team has also secured funding from the Technology Strategy Board, the European Union, the Environment Agency and a number of industrial backers.
Given that the PWG has generated such a wide range of tools and techniques over the years that are being used across the country, it comes as little surprise that the members of its advisory board reads like a Who’s Who of the water industry.
Indeed, it is the University of Sheffield’s search for solutions to problems that are common across the water industry that has lead to them being held in such high esteem and to be in such high demand.
The Prediction and control of Discolouration in Distribution Systems (PODDS ) project, for instance, which was originally funded by the EPSRC, is now seeking to enter its fifth phase. The project team is seen as such a valuable asset to the industry that United Utilities, Wessex Water, Yorkshire Water, Severn Trent and Northumbrian Water are all now longstanding partners.
“What started out as a relatively small, but highly adventurous project, has evolved into a consortium model where we are jointly funded to help the industry find solutions to common challenges, helping them to deliver significant service improvements to customers and operational efficiencies. Discolouration is often the single biggest problem that customers complain about in the water supply sector,” said Professor Boxall.
Phase five of the PODDS project will draw on some of the more fundamental scientific work the University has been carrying out under the separate – but related – Pipe Dreams project. This is an EPSRC Challenging Engineering project that is fusing computer science and microbiology with engineering to drive a paradigm shift in the way in which the performance of water distribution systems are understood, operated,
rehabilitated and maintained. In particular Pipe Dreams has been investigating the microbiology that develops on pipe surfaces.
“So far this research has been carried out in a controlled, managed, pure research way,” he added. “What we now want to do is to identify those aspects of this research that will be of real benefit to the water industry and, ultimately, its customers. So what we are going to do is to take this idealised, lab-based microbiological understanding and apply it in a practical way to help the industry.”
Professor Boxall, though a leading authority on ageing buried pipework, acknowledges that working closely with industry for over a decade has helped him develop a talent for pulling together inter-disciplinary teams that are much more than the sum of their parts.
“Getting the right people together who are then focused on solving a problem is one of the things that we do well here at Sheffield. While people in the industry are busy facing tough day-to-day decisions, we can step back a bit from that and take a longer-term, more transformative look at what the industry needs well beyond its five year cycles.”
www.sheffield.ac.uk/penninewatergroup
‘Getting the right people together who are then focused on solving a problem is one of the things that we do well here at Sheffield.’Professor Joby Boxall
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iLLuSTraTiOn.The cafeteria
SPOTLIGHT — Engineering Special
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The construction of a new £81 million purpose built engineering faculty in the heart of the city is testimony to Sheffield’s desire to gain pole position.
“The British economy faces two central challenges, and we are ideally positioned to help meet both of them,” Neale said. “The first is the catastrophic lack of future engineering talent; and the second is the pressing need to innovate and develop to stimulate growth. Industry knows we have a huge resource here e.g. the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing is driving innovation at the sharp end of production, making a real impact on productivity that is helping to keep jobs, skills and an industrial base here in the UK.
“But we are also working with industry on the technology and products of tomorrow, helping to future proof the economy by working with them on their longer-term, strategic growth plans.”
Through the Engineering Gateway the University is helping both multinationals and more local companies who want to improve their market share. One such company is William Beckett Plastics, a leading manufacturer and global exporter of specialised cutting tool packaging.
With the help of the Gateway team and The Mercury Centre (a research centre part financed by the European Regional Development Fund) they were able to secure funding for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (a Technology Strategy Board funded scheme that encourages collaboration between academia and businesses) that enabled them to tap in to the engineering expertise in the University. This resulted in the development of new metal injection moulding technologies and ultimately to the opening up of new markets that led to the formation of a new company Beckett MIM.
But Professor Rodriguez-Falcon emphasizes “this is not about the badge” The University is “taking a close look at how we treat female colleagues and female students to see if there are ways we can eradicate any hidden prejudice.”
She insists this is not about positive discrimination, but about getting fairness for all. Subtle processes and cultures can often work against women. “We have found that in practical classes, where there might be just one woman, it is the male students who conduct the practical while the woman takes the notes. We now have ways of ensuring this doesn’t happen,” she says.
The new Faculty Director is under no illusions about the challenges she and her colleagues face. “This is a really big problem and it can only be solved if everyone does something about it – parents, school teachers, employers, journalists, politicians, they all have a part to play in changing the culture.”
For William Beckett, Managing Director of the parent company, the “partnership with the University has enabled us to develop the Metal Injection Moulding (MIM) process, which will ensure future growth and success in the marketplace, keeping skills and jobs here in the region.”
www.seg.sheffield.ac.uk
Like most engineers, she relishes a challenge and remains optimistic. She cites how a group of students are working with the charity Assist UK in helping solve access for disabled people who have been banned from using trams in the UK because of their power driven wheelchairs. “Engineers are problem solvers and they will find a solution for this, and when they do we can show the world how engineering is about caring, it is about changing people’s lives for the better, and it is about making a difference.”
www.sheffield.ac.uk/faculty/engineering/wie
Watch a short film about women in engineering: www.youtube.com/sheffielduni
‘Forward thinking companies are talking to us about their future needs and we are looking at how we can help them achieve those goals.’Neale Daniel, Gateway Manager
The Engineering Gateway has evolved from a simple, easy to access portal for business into a much more strategic innovation hub, where researchers at the University of Sheffield work closely with their private sector counterparts to develop future products and techniques.
“The economic climate is changing, and so are we,” said Neale Daniel, a former senior engineer in the private sector and the man charged with bringing the world of engineering research and the world of business into the same strategic orbit – to the benefit of both.
What might once have been piecemeal projects with individual academics, are now being transformed into longer-term, strategic relationships, where leading figures in the private sector –such as Siemens, Rolls-Royce and Boeing – play a key role in the University’s industrial liaison boards to help shape the future direction of research.
“Forward thinking companies are talking to us about their future needs and we are looking at how we can help them achieve those goals. This is a much more joined up approach, and shows how Sheffield is building on its great strength in engineering to forge strategic industrial partnerships,” Neale added.
This transformation is nowhere more evident than in the University’s ambition to become number one in Britain for engineering – having recently overtaken Cambridge to secure second position behind Imperial College, London – thus reinforcing its reputation as an innovation hub.
SHEFFIELd EnGInEERInG GATEWAy the innovation hub As a mechanical engineer from mexico,
Elena Rodriguez-Falcon arrived in Britain 16 years ago only to find that most people outside the University of Sheffield thought that she must work as a mechanic servicing motorcars or repairing washing machines.
“In Mexico, engineers are held in high esteem like doctors and lawyers, but not in modern Britain,” says Professor Rodriguez-Falcon, who last year was made Faculty Director of Women in Engineering.
Her task is nothing less than to try and change the culture that has led to this situation and a culture where just 7 per cent of practicing engineers in Britain are now women.
Britain, she says, faces an impending crisis as the supply of highly skilled, advanced engineers begins to diminish. “We have two very big problems. The first is a misunderstanding of what engineering is about, and the role it plays in improving the quality of all our lives. And the second is the perception that engineering is overwhelmingly a male preserve. We have to change both those perceptions,” she says.
Already the University has taken a long hard look at its own culture and processes. All seven engineering departments are working towards Athena Swan bronze and silver awards which set the benchmark standards for universities who want to advance the careers of women in science and engineering.
WOmEn in engineering
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But more than that, Professor Hodzic and her team knew they were on the brink of an innovation that was about to transform not only the packaging industry, but also the use of plastics worldwide: their new plant based polymer blend is 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable which is a first for the industry.
For Shaun and CPD this was nothing short of an innovation revolution. “CPD is a major supplier of 15-litre water commercial water bottles. We are part of an industry that sells more than 15 million bottles a day, the vast majority of which are produced using the planet’s ever decreasing oil supplies. We also know that it can take up to 500 years for a plastic bottle to decompose in landfill. So clearly we need to act fast to avoid drowning in a sea of unwanted, unrecyclable plastic that is draining the earth’s precious resources.”
“We are delighted with the progress we have made so far, and that the research team led by Professor Hodzic is on board to take our project to the manufacturing stage, which, in itself, is a new research challenge. A second KTP started in 2011, aiming to lead to more biopolymer breakthrough technologies during 2013,” said Shaun.
Already a new company known as Floreon – its name a composite made up of florens (flourishing/flowering) and æon (time, age, duration) – has been set up to take the University’s know-how of materials to full-scale production as the relationship with CPD has deepened.
A new project which brings in the expertise and facilities at the AMRC is investigating more novel possibilities for bio-products that can replace synthetic plastics. Specific ideas will develop as the project unfolds, but already it is possible to envisage fizzy drink bottles, stationery and even structural materials produced from renewable and compostable resources.
The research team’s goal is to transform the way we think about plastic and the way we work with plastic and ultimately to have only a positive impact on the environment. “Here at the AMRC our approach is to make it simple, make it fast and make it right,” said Professor Hodzic. “We took an existing bio-based polymer PLA with beautiful material qualities and added to it to make it work.
“We have been very lucky in having Dr Andy Gill as our KTP Associate, he has been vital to the success of this project. As a chemist he understands the fundamental science, but the challenge has been to take this understanding and knowledge and make it commercially viable and capable of large-scale manufacture. Andy has done that and we are now at the point where new markets will open, a business will grow, and jobs will be created. That is a remarkable achievement.”
Shaun concludes: “The possibilities for Floreon are endless. We’ve gone far beyond the original remit of replacing the traditional water bottle or even replacing PET plastic and other plastic derivatives with Floreon. With ongoing development, there’s almost no limit to Floreon’s applications. We’re starting with an iconic water bottle, but ultimately Floreon might be used to construct aircraft.”
www.shef.ac.uk/csic www.amrc.co.uk
As the environmentally conscious cEO of one of Britain’s leading independent suppliers of cleaning and hygiene products, Shaun chatterton understood only too well that his industry needed to find a more sustainable solution to its packaging.
But, unlike many of his rivals, the boss of Hull-based CPD knew what to do about it. He approached polymer composite experts at the University of Sheffield to help him find a solution to his problem.
By November 2008, CPD had embarked on a Government funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University’s Professor Alma Hodzic, Director of Research at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing who played a leading role in developing a commercially viable bio-derived compostable bio-polymer blend.
Professor Hodzic and her team did this by using corn-based PLA blends to replace the plastics currently manufactured from non-sustainable oil based materials.
For two years, the team of four polymer scientists – including KTP Associate Dr Peter Bailey – selected, manufactured and tested different blends of renewable, sustainable bio-polymer compounds. The University drew on the core expertise of its Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Departments, and their extensive knowledge of composites and nanotechnology, to produce a revolutionary new blend.
“When the project was completed, two independent judges assessed our work on its novelty, impact, scientific outputs, commercial success and potential, and the effectiveness of project management,” said Professor Hodzic. “We were delighted that we were awarded an outstanding grade – an accolade attained by only 5% of KTP projects nationwide.”
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FEATURE — Research Collaborations
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By 2030 it is predicted that more than 90 per cent of the British population will live in cities and urban conurbations, which is why researchers at the University of Sheffield are joining forces with policy makers and the private sector to establish a dedicated Sheffield Urban Institute that will pull together the diverse skills and knowledge of its academics to develop more sustainable cities.
The University is already using a major research council funded project to help Sheffield City Council respond to the challenges of designing the city for an ageing population. The project – which is managed by the School of Architecture, the Department of Town and Regional Planning, and the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) – is developing an analytical toolkit to support good design in the city’s Highway Maintenance PFI.
cITIESof the future
“With a dedicated Sheffield Urban Institute we could do much more of this kind of work, where we take an integrated approach to problem solving and the design of solutions,” said Dr Aidan While of the Department of Town and Regional Planning. “We are currently in talks with both Arup and Siemens about how they see the future of sustainable cities and how we can support their activities.
“Companies like Siemens know that cities now consume about 75% of all the world’s energy and emit around 80% of all greenhouse gases. This means that the fight against climate change will be won or lost in cities, so it’s crucial we make our urban habitats more efficient, cleaner and better to live in - not only for ourselves, but for future generations and the earth’s diverse ecosystems.”
Key players in the new Sheffield Urban Institute – which is being led by Professor Craig Watkins, Faculty of Social Sciences Director of Research and Innovation and Professor of Town and Regional Planning – are already establishing links with fellow academics around the world, but especially in India and the Far East.
“The urban agenda is a global agenda,” said Dr While. “We want to work much more closely with Sheffield and the city region, but we also want to learn from how other universities around the world are tackling this issue.”
A recent visit to Seoul revealed how its university works closely with the city council and the Mayor’s office, and how its own Institute of Urban Science brings together multi-disciplinary teams to help the city tackle the many problems associated with its phenomenal growth. “We will be hosting a return visit next year,” said Dr While, who is also establishing closer links with a much younger institution, the TERI University in Delhi, which is founded on environmental and sustainable principles.
www.sheffield.ac.uk/trp/staff/aidan_while
‘Cities now consume about 75% of the world’s energy and emit around 80% of all greenhouse gases. This means that the fight against climate change will be won or lost in cities, so it’s crucial we make our urban habitats more efficient.’Dr Aidan While, Sheffield Urban Institute
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When Professor Alejandro Frangi talks about his new €18 million European Union funded research project into the early diagnosis of different types of dementia, he sounds more like a neuroscientist or a clinician than an electrical or mechanical engineer.
But the Argentine-born researcher, who is now a senior figure in the University of Sheffield’s Faculty of Engineering, began his career studying Telecommunication Engineering at Barcelona, before moving to Holland where he secured a PhD at the Image Sciences Institute in Utrecht University.
His new project, a collaborative venture between the University’s Faculties of Engineering and Medicine and the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and involving more than 20 partners spanning various disciplines, universities and private sector companies, is the latest stage in a journey that has seen him applying sophisticated imaging approaches to the modelling of the brain – including its links to the rest of the body and the wider environment – to improve early diagnosis of dementia.
“My role is not one that most people would associate with mechanical engineering,” says Professor Frangi. “But that is the beauty of engineering; it is integral to so many other fields of research and is the key to improving the quality of our lives in so many ways.”
mOdELLInG THE BRAIn improving early diagnosis of dementia
Right now, his immediate goal is to draw together some of the best and brightest brains across a range of research disciplines – and from a variety of nations and working cultures – to create a high performing team that will meet the European Union’s challenge of developing new ways of identifying the early signs of dementia in individual patients, 115 million of whom will be affected by the condition worldwide in 2050 according to the latest estimates.
“We have been given four years to come up with the results,” says Professor Frangi “Our aim is to develop a more objective method for the earlier prediction and individual differential diagnosis of dementias that will support the world’s health systems cope with the burden of the more than 36 million people who are afflicted by the condition. The project will focus specifically the differential diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementias, which account for more than 80% of all dementias.
“Currently, diagnosis still relies on basic cognitive tests and traditional brain scans for diagnosis of dementia but these aren’t good enough to recognise the disease at a stage where treatment is most effective. Our model is the first to combine a wide range of physiological and lifestyle data from medical imaging and wearable sensors – such as blood flow, brain biomechanical tissue properties, and cellular activity – with psychological measures such as memory and cognitive function. It will also bring in demographic, genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors, making it much more sensitive than existing diagnostic tools. Our goal is to develop a Disease State Index or disease fingerprint that accounts for the multifactorial nature of the disease.”
When fully developed, the new model will allow doctors to identify those patients who are at most at risk long before the obvious symptoms appear. This, in turn, will enable clinicians to determine what form of dementia it is, and to respond with the most effective treatments.
www.vph-share.eu
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Issue 03 — August 2013
dIScOvER — Economic and societal benefit through research and collaboration
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A smart helmet that uses ultrasound sensors to help its wearer navigate in the dark will significantly improve the ability of fire fighters and rescue workers to do their work.
Invented by researchers at the Sheffield Centre for Robotics (SCentRo), jointly established by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, the helmet was inspired by research into tactile sensing in rodents, whose whiskers give early warning of potential hazards.
“When a firefighter is responding to an emergency he will be using his eyes and ears to make sense of his environment, trying to make out objects in a smoke filled room, for example, or straining to hear sounds from people who might need rescuing,” said Professor Tony Prescott, SCentRo director.
“We found that in these circumstances it was difficult to process additional information through these senses. Using the sense of touch, however, we were able to deliver additional information effectively.”
The prototype helmet was produced following a two-year research project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
SmART HELmET seeing in the dark
A new £43 million state-of-the-art research factory which is designed to meet the future needs of aerospace and other high-value manufacturing industries is to be built on the ever expanding Advanced manufacturing Research centre (AmRc) with Boeing site.
The AMRC Factory 2050 will be the UK’s first fully reconfigurable assembly and component manufacturing facility for collaborative research, capable of rapidly switching production between different high-value components and one-off parts.
The creation of the new facility is supported by a £10 million grant from the Research Partnership Investment Fund, managed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Leading manufacturers including Boeing, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Spirit AeroSystems are also committed to supporting the project.
“This will be the most advanced factory in the world. It will give us a home for the research and demonstration work associated with building the next generation of aircraft and energy technologies,” said Professor Keith Ridgway, Executive Dean of the AMRC.
2050 vISIOn research factory
A new technique for delivering stem cell therapy that helps the natural repair of damaged eyes could help millions of people across the world retain – or even regain – their sight. Using a combination of techniques, the researchers are able to make a disc of biodegradable material which is loaded with stem cells which then multiply, allowing the body to heal the eye naturally.
Treating corneal blindness is a particularly pressing problem in the developing world, where there are high instances of chemical or accidental damage to the eye but complex treatments such as transplants or amniotic membrane grafts are not available.
HELP In SIGHT stem cell disc
7 9
8Swarms of robots acting together
to carry out jobs could provide new opportunities for humans to harness the power of machines.
Researchers in the Sheffield Centre for Robotics (SCentRo), jointly established by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, have demonstrated that the swarm can carry out simple fetching and carrying tasks by grouping around an object and working together to push it across a surface.
The robots can also group themselves together into a single cluster after being scattered across a room, and organize themselves by order of priority.
Dr Roderich Gross, head of the Natural Robotics Lab, in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield, says swarming robots could have important roles to play in the future of micromedicine, as ‘nanobots’ are developed for non-invasive treatment of humans.
On a larger scale, they could play a part in military, or search and rescue operations, acting together in areas where it would be too dangerous or impractical for humans to go. In industry too, robot swarms could be put to use, improving manufacturing processes and workplace safety.
This research is funded by a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant, with additional support through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Watch a video about robot swarms www.youtube.com search robot swarm – University of Sheffield
A SWARm OF ROBOTS power of machines
11BRIEFInG — Engineering Special
“Laboratory tests have shown that the membranes will support cell growth, so the next stage is to trial this in patients in India, working with our colleagues in the LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad,” says Professor Sheila MacNeil.
The research is supported by a Wellcome Trust Affordable Healthcare for India Award to the University of Sheffield and the LV Prasad Eye Institute. The work has also been supported through a Research Fellowship for Dr Ílida Ortega Ascencio from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
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Source: The University of Sheffield Media Centresheffield.ac.uk/news
iMagE.concept design by Bond Bryan Architects of the AmRc Factory 2050
Issue 03 — August 2013
Economic and societal benefit through research and collaboration
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“The results were much more accurate than the Bank’s own forecasts, but its mandarins have yet to embrace the new technology. Professor Holcombe continues: “The Bank’s forecasters have been using the same models for decades and are reluctant to change the habits of a lifetime. The difference with our models is that we start from the bottom up, we work with the participants themselves, rather than assuming that everyone behaves rationally and that markets are inherently stable.”
Professor Holcombe is also researching the evolution and development of smart city thinking. “The idea of smart cities is not a new one, but is increasingly a reality as more and more information – known as Big Data – is now available for government, councils and the private sector to use to understand and influence their clients and voters. There is a huge amount of information out there, but nobody knows what it all means.”
He cites the case of a large medical administration company with files on more than 39 million patients. “At the moment they can read about an individual’s illness or disease, but they aren’t able to look at global outcomes – they can’t see how effective the service is in treating back pain for instance. We can help them sort that data and to analyse it in a way the helps inform decision makers.”
Professor Holcombe and his team are also working with Alpha Rooms – an on-line travel agency that was set up by one of his graduates and now employs 90 staff and boasts a turnover of £90 million. “The company is interested in how it can access information from social media and other Big Data sources in a way that enables them to target their potential customers much more accurately. For instance, they may discover from evidence on social media that a person is a keen mountaineer – that information would enable the company to provide the customer with the kind of holidays he might be interested in. And we can help him to do that using very clever techniques.”
When two leading infrastructure and transport companies – costain and Thameslink – wanted to be sure their designs for major London railway stations would maximise pedestrian flow and passenger comfort, they turned to a team of computer scientists at the University of Sheffield.
“One of our areas of expertise is computer simulation,” says Professor Mike Holcombe, Director of the newly established Advanced Computing Research Centre (ACRC) and an international authority on how technology can help shape and inform the design of smart, or future cities.
Using powerful algorithms and insights into how people and crowds behave, the ACRC’s team of simulation experts, led by Dr Daniela Romano, are able to show what can happen in busy stations and how to avoid the risk of overcrowding.
The simulation creates moving images on the screen, reminiscent of the best digital game platforms, which provides a visually rich picture of how people behave as individuals and groups and interact with a constantly changing environment.
“It enables the designers to look again at their ideas and to build in better solutions that help reduce the risk of unwanted events happening, while minimising their impact should they occur,” he said.
“We are also applying the principles behind this sort of simulation to design very sophisticated and predictive economic models,” Professor Holcombe added. “I was recently invited to show the forecasters at the Bank of England how our model worked and what its predictions would be for quantitative easing.
All this expertise is now being drawn together to establish an Advanced Computing Research Centre, modelled on the hugely successful Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing. “Our aim is to work closely with companies so that we can understand their immediate needs and help shape their strategic direction, if that is needed. We will be building on our expertise in simulation, data analysis and testing, and developing flexible funding mechanisms that allow us to do both short term and longer term projects with partners in both the public and the private sector.”
www.acrc.com
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dIScOvER — Issue 03 — August 2013
FEATURE — Smart Cities
‘Our aim is to work closely with companies so that we can understand their immediate needs and help shape their strategic direction.’Professor Mike Holcombe
iLLuSTraTiOn.The cafeteria
dIScOvER — Economic and societal benefit through research and collaboration
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The ground breaking motor technology being commercialised by magnomatics originated in the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Sheffield, and is now attracting interest for a range of applications across a variety of sectors from automotive, wind energy and defence through to marine, oil & gas and aerospace.
Hospital acquired infections are an increasing public health concern and are implicated in the rise in the number of hospital deaths. The fight against one of the most deadly of these bacteria, the so-called superbug mRSA, is being led by Absynth, a University of Sheffield spin-out company.
The company, now led by Managing Director Dr Fiona Marston, is based on discoveries made by the University of Sheffield’s Professor Simon Foster and Dr Jorge Garcia-Lara, who are both key players in the spin-out.
Dr Marston said: “With the support of Fusion IP we have been able to take a unique patented technology, discovered here at the University of Sheffield, and use it to develop an MRSA vaccine and antibodies to treat significant MRSA-related infections as well as other applications.”
www.absynthbiologics.co.uk
cASE STUdy 1 ABSynTH BIOLOGIcS fighting superbugs
cASE STUdy 3 mAGnOmATIcS innovative electromechanical solutions
Its breakthrough energy efficient MagsplitTM transmission for hybrid cars is currently being developed with leading motor manufacturers and its multi-megawatt PDD® motor technology will increase the efficiency and reduce the size of the next generation of marine propulsion motors.
“Magnomatics has created a new technology that will change the way we think about all drive systems. It is a wonderful example of the wealth of innovation that SMEs in the UK have to offer. I can only marvel at the possibilities that their superlative research and development will produce next,” said Peter Luff, Minister for Defence Equipment, when presenting the company with the prestigious NDI award for Innovation and Technology.
www.magnomatics.com
One of the secrets of Sheffield’s success in creating sustainable spin out companies is the way its academics focus on finding real world solutions to real world problems, says Stephen Pyke one of the University’s commercialisation managers.
“Take Seren for example,” he says. “Here is a company that is addressing a series of fundamental problems facing policy makers – these include global warming, the impending energy crisis and the need for manufacturers to meet ever more stringent environmental regulatory requirements while still remaining profitable.”
Seren’s technology can play a key role in the lighting revolution that will see LEDs replace incandescent light bulbs in the near future. Seren has a patent-pending processing technology that results in LEDs with exceptional performance and greater energy efficiency.
Now the company’s technology is targeted at the large and fast growing markets such as back lighting for laptop computers and TVs, signs and displays as well as domestic and architectural lighting. This market is set to grow to $12bn by the end of the year.
“By helping our academics turn strong ideas into even stronger products we are able to ensure that the research work in the University is developed in a way that has the maximum beneficial impact on society – whether globally in terms of products and services, or more locally and regionally in terms of employment opportunities and the promotion of economic growth,” says Stephen.
Based in the University’s Research and Innovation Services, Stephen’s role is to assist academics in the identification and evaluation of the commercial opportunities that arise from the University’s research.
It is during this phase of commercial assessment and IP protection that Fusion IP, an AIM listed company in which the University is a key shareholder, will also become involved in helping turn world class research into businesses with great growth potential.
Fusion IP supports and nurtures a range of companies in sectors as diverse as healthcare and medical, through to energy, software and environmental. Fusion gives investors the opportunity to turn world-class innovation into world-class products.
“We strongly believe that the future of UK plc is very much bound up with making value from the intellectual property from our universities,” said David Baynes CEO of Fusion IP. “As a country, we are outstanding at this.”
A small sample of the spin-out companies based on IP generated by University of Sheffield academics and established with the support of the commercialisation team and Fusion IP are covered in the following case studies.
‘We strongly believe that the future of UK plc is very much bound up with making value from the intellectual property from our universities.’David Baynes, CEO, Fusion IP
FEATURE — Spin-outs
The idea of a microscope without a lens may seem far-fetched to most people: that it might also provide the highest resolution images ever seen, stretches credulity. But that is the vision that launched a £4.3 million EPSRc Ultimate microscopy project led by the Faculty of Engineering’s Professor John Rodenburg.
With the support of Fusion IP and an injection of venture capital now totalling £5.7 million, this disruptive technology is being commercialised through Phase Focus, a University of Sheffield spin out company that now employs close to 20 people, and that has signed a commercialisation deal with a leading global electron microscopy firm.
The name of the spin out comes from a famous mathematical conundrum, known as ‘the phase problem,’ to which Professor Rodenburg found a solution and which now forms the heart of his new invention.
The device uses clever mathematics and a light sensor instead of a lens. A computer then reconstructs the image from a series of patterns formed when light or electrons scatter through a sample. The result promises to transform electron microscopy in particular.
The ‘phase imaging’ can provide high-precision images of features in transparent samples that are incredibly useful for manufacturers of soft contact lenses. The technology also has a particular strength in performing stain-free cell imaging – which again is revolutionary.
Ian L. Pykett, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “John’s vision was to create the highest resolution images ever seen and that is still the collective vision of John and Phase Focus. Great strides have been made to that end (including signing a deal with a world-leading electron microscopy firm), and we are all confident that the goal will be reached. From a commercial point of view, many other valuable benefits of the technology have already been demonstrated and incorporated into products.”
www.phasefocus.com
cASE STUdy 2 PHASE FOcUS microscopes without a lens
Issue 03 — August 2013
UncOvERInG LIFE in Nazi occupied France
It is rare for a researcher to discover unpublished material as rich and original as the diaries of a young yorkshire woman living in fear of internment in the heart of Paris during the nazi Occupation: but that is what dr Wendy michallat found when she began to decipher the handwritten pages of madeleine Blaess’s notebooks.
“They were discovered under Madeleine’s bed when we came to collect the personal library she had bequeathed to the University, following her death in 2003,” said Dr Michallat.
Madeleine was born in France in 1918, but had been brought up and educated in Yorkshire. She returned to France shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War to study at the Sorbonne. “She was trapped by the German advance in June 1940, and begins her diary just four months later, continuing with barely a missed entry until October 1944.
“The diaries contain unprecedented detail about everyday life in wartime Paris and its crushing isolation, desperate shortages, horrific repression and persecution. But they also contain reports of resistance activities and chronicle the rich cultural life associated with Sylvia Beach and her literary circle, which go to make this a unique manuscript with exciting narrative possibilities.”
It took a solid couple of months for Dr Michallat to decipher the tiny handwriting, but what her work revealed was a rare manuscript written from the perspective of a young English student during one of the most tragic episodes of modern Europe.
“Throughout the Occupation Madeleine was fearful that her British identity would be exposed and that she would suffer the fate of her British Canadian friends who were interned. To avoid that happening she destroyed all the letters from her parents in 1940 and wrote her diary notes in French,’ she added.
Now, the young Madeleine’s experience of life in war torn Paris is to be the subject of a short film made by Dr Michallat and her undergraduate students. “I thought this was real opportunity to involve the students in doing something more vocational. With the help of an Arts Enterprise grant they are now working on translating, transcribing and filming of extracts from the diaries.”
What makes the project so special to Sheffield, however, is that when Madeleine returned to England after the war, she became an academic at the University of Sheffield where she taught French from 1948 until her retirement in 1983.
But Dr Michallat also wanted to engage the wider community in the project. As a result, her students are now working with members of the University of the Third Age Sheffield Museums group, to gather memories of life in the city at that time. “About half of those who came to our first meeting knew Madeleine from her time as lecturer at the university. She was a big figure in Fulwood and well known,” Dr Michallat says.
The engagement between the young students and this much older group has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the project for Dr Michallat. “The students can relate directly to Madeleine as a young woman, and the difficulties she faced, but it has also been valuable for them to hear first hand the experiences of her contemporaries.
“Madeleine is interesting because, like so many women at that time, she felt pressured into having to choose between having a professional career or being a mother with a family. She wanted both and said so in the diary. Towards the end of her diary, as it becomes clear that the writing is on the wall for the Nazis, she begins to think about returning home to
Yorkshire – but she is not excited. During the war, she had become a much more independent and emancipated young woman, and she worried that this might be lost when she returned to England.”
When the project is completed, Dr Michallat says: “the film will showcase the learning resources, dynamism and commitment of students and staff at the University. It will also show our relevance to the broader community of creative professionals and the elderly; the latter so often under-represented in higher education outreach initiatives.”
For her, the project’s impact and cross-disciplinary relevance can be found not only in the production process but also in the intrinsic historical value of the diary’s primary testimony of the period. “Madeleine’s connection to the University in this very Yorkshire story has great potential and we all hope our work will trigger a more ambitious film or television venture.”
www.blaessproject.wordpress.com
To read more diary entries follow twitter: @madeleineblaess
6 July 1942: Office. Failed Latin with a 6 and French with a 7. Reported identity card lost. Phoned Aunt who treats me like an imbecile.
5 July 1942: Such joy to see countryside again. Nearly fell off seat in train pointing at cows. George came. Death stalks the sana. Awful.
27 June 1942: Been tense all day. Slept all afternoon & that calmed me down. Queued hour for peaches. So irritable. Something is in the air.
26 June 1942: Went for injection to Cyla’s. “La Cuisine en Australie”. R tried to charm me and wanted me to spend the night. Flatly refused.
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iMagE.Reproduced with the kind permission of Phil morris
Issue 03 — August 2013dIScOvER —
dIScOvER —
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8.00 amJet lagged. Only yesterday I was in New
York at a Symposium on New Weapons Technology. It’s almost five years since I first alerted the world to the dangers of autonomous weapons and our campaign is now really getting noticed. I have given close to 40 presentations this year alone and I feel close to burn out. I listen to Radio 4 and then turn on the computer to look at my emails. I need a coffee.
10.00 amNormally I would roast my own beans
and make my own espresso but today I have a visitor: a journalist from Sweden. He arrives on time and we have a brief talk in my study – one of two in the seven-bedroomed house – before we head down to Abbeydale Road and Bragazzis. They make the best espresso in Britain. We sit down in the leather chesterfield and I ask him what he needs for his story. Having worked with journalists and written articles for newspapers and magazines, I know how they work and what they want. He leaves happy and I take him down to the station in the car.
11.30 amOn the way back I rehearse the TEDx
talk I am to give this afternoon in the city. Big lectures don’t bother me, but this one has to be 18 minutes long and timed to perfection. I don’t memorise the speech, but I do learn the transitions. I am so grateful to one of my mentors at Stanford, one of the world’s leading psychologists, Gordon Bower, who many years ago taught me so much about public speaking. It will be good to see him in London next week.
12.00I love cooking. My five daughters, all of
who have left home, spent many hours in the kitchen with me. I had them breaking eggs from the age of three. It was very messy but they loved it. The kitchen has a library of recipe books – my wife and I are vegetarians and today I am preparing a gluten tempeh steak. It takes a while and has to be left to stand, so I do that before getting back to the TEDx talk.
12.30 pmSuffering from jet lag, I feel I need a
boost. I get this by playing rock music loud on my guitar. If I hadn’t been an academic I would have been a rock musician or a chef. If I don’t need quite so much stimulation I will play the Irish whistle. Sometimes I will do both, I will start off with a few jigs and reels on the whistle and then get the guitar out. I get back to preparing for the talk tonight – selecting a few slides and images. It will be a very personal talk. I was born just after the war and my dad died shortly after it ended – but it was the war that killed him. There is a picture of my uncle who was captured and taken prisoner. How did we get that picture? Well he is standing staring into the camera holding a placard with his name on it.
1.00 pmThe talk. I make my way to the Upper
Chapel Methodist Church and I am amazed that 350 people have turned up. The talk is well received and will go out in two weeks time – the theme is Killer Robots, but there is a lot of new material in it.
4.00 pmMore emails to sort through.
The Guardian want a quick turn round piece on driverless cars. It’s a tight deadline but I can do it. I look at the gluten tempeh and it is coming along nicely. It forms a rich, thick steak that requires a steak knife. Although I am Irish, I don’t eat potatoes as we try to keep to a low carb diet. A mix of celeriac, cauliflower and parsnip is a brilliant alternative.
5.00 pmSummer, my youngest daughter, calls
on the house phone. It’s the first day of a new job. She has been appointed pastry chef at a Michelin 2 star restaurant in London and is keen to tell me about things. As a teenager she cooked with me every evening. We talk cakes and food. But my mind is now fully on tonight’s talk. To let things digest I take the dog out for a walk. Flame is an Irish Setter and totally soft. The only thing I have to watch out for is people on park benches eating sandwiches. Flame will have the food in no time.
8.00 pmVery tired, I arrive home for a late
vegetarian steak. For years I have suffered from insomnia. I recently discovered a cure, however, and am now addicted to unabridged, audio books. Two chapters and I am asleep. Even on a plane. I am listening to Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez. It’s a gripping book and the author supports our campaign to stop killer robots. I will be seeing him in Pasadena, California, later in the year.
www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/n.sharkey
A dAy In THE LIFE Noel Sharkey
Best known for his role in the TV game show robot Wars, Professor noel Sharkey now spends much of his time travelling round the world campaigning against the onward march of ‘Killer robots’. Discover caught up with him and asked him about a day in his busy life.
Issue 03 — August 2013
Image: by Professor Nigel Dunnett
Chelsea Flower Show 2013 Royal Bank of Canada ‘Blue Water Roof Garden’.
Collaboration with Professor Nigel Dunnett, Landscape Architects, The Landscape Agency, contractors Mark Gregory and Landform Consultants and sponsored by The Royal Bank of Canada.
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