| |
NEW FARADAY PARTNERSHIP TO ENABLE HIGH THROUGHPUT TECHNOLOGIES IN PRODUCT AND PROCESS R&D.
06 September 2002 - LGC
| Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, announced a new Faraday Partnership in High Throughput Technologies on 5 September 2002 in which LGC is the core partner. The aim of the INSIGHT Faraday Partnership is to make HTT an integral part of new product and process development, leading to reductions in 'time to market' for UK industry. INSIGHT, one of six partnerships approved in the latest round, has been awarded an initial £2.2m over three years, with core funding to come from the Department of Trade and Industry and research funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. |
High throughput technologies, the generic term for an expanding range of experimental and developmental hardware, software and organisational processes, can increase productivity in R&D by orders of magnitude over traditional approaches. HTT systems incorporate chemical, material and process design, synthesis and formulation, characterisation, performance evaluation and informatics. INSIGHT chairman, Dr Brian Warrington of GlaxoSmithKline, said: "The premise of INSIGHT is that industry must adopt integrated HTT methodologies as a matter of urgency if UK competitiveness is not to suffer irreparably. Sectors affected span all those manufacturing, formulating and using compounds and materials, including chemicals, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, polymers, plastics, metals, ceramics, household / consumer goods, food and drink. HTT can have a significant impact on the performance of supply chains, not just individual firms, and on distributed manufacturing. The potential benefits of HTT have yet to be appreciated across UK industry, particularly by SMEs." Dr Richard Worswick, LGC's Chief Executive, said: "The key challenges of HTT to be addressed by INSIGHT include accessibility, quality and quantity of information, novel probes for performance measurement and informatics. Multi-disciplinary approaches to the realisation and exploitation of HTT systems will be the essential feature of a new generation of product and process developments, and will spur new approaches to R&D. This will only be achieved through true partnership. LGC is privileged to be at the centre of INSIGHT, an innovative collaboration with several universities, which will involve world-class expertise from the UK across the chemical, physical and biological fields." Faraday Partnerships aim to promote improved interactions and networks between the UK science, engineering and technology base, and industry, through the involvement of intermediate organisations. The key objectives of the INSIGHT Faraday Partnership are:
To become the recognised UK´s focal point for High Throughput Technologies within five years;
To complete within one year a detailed audit of UK activities and capabilities in HTT;
To bring HTT more rapidly into UK industrial, particularly SME, and academic practice by overcoming cultural and cost barriers to uptake;
To establish an INSIGHT web site, advisory service, workshops, visit programme and missions;
To promote and disseminate best practice and share research outputs;
To demonstrate how existing technologies can be integrated into effective HTT systems;
To develop skills in the use and exploitation of HTT through CPD and postgraduate training;
To form new collaborative research partnerships to advance HTT.
http://www.lgc.co.uk
About: LGC
LGC is Europe's leading independent analytical laboratory providing advanced chemical, biochemical and forensic analysis, diagnostic services, DNA testing and genetic screening, research, method development, consultancy, training and analytical outsourcing. LGC operates in a diverse range of markets, in both the public and private sectors, including foods, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, environment and chemicals and is the national measurement laboratory for chemical and biochemical analysis. LGC's services are designed to help organisations produce high quality data on which to base scientific and commercial decisions. Reference materials supplied by our market-leading distribution business, LGC Promochem, underpin the quality of measurement in many industrial sectors including pharmaceuticals. LGC Promochem distributes reference standards and ATCC biomaterials throughout Europe and in India. Growing at around 15% per annum and majority-owned by Legal & General Ventures since April 2004, LGC is based in Teddington, Middlesex, with additional laboratory facilities in Runcorn, Cheshire, in Edinburgh, Scotland and in Luckenwalde, Germany. Further offices are located in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and India. |
More News:
• For September 2002
• From LGC
• For Analytical Services
|
