Welcome everybody to the April edition of our newsletter containing details of our activities, grants awarded, and calendar of up and coming events. This newsletter is one of the many ways we use to reach out to our grants community and stakeholders. So please feel free to pass it onto your colleagues and other people who you feel might be interested in our work. To subscribe and receive copies directly click on the link on this page. We’re proud of the impact our funding is having and you can read below how we’ve subscribed to an organisation called 360Giving to share and coordinate our grants data. Happy reading.
Best regards,
Richard
Royal Institution impact
There have now been over 1.7 million viewers of the 2016 series on BBC Four and a total of over 3.5 million interactions through broadcast, theatre attendees, and social media. A Science in Schools show based on this year’s CHRISTMAS LECTURES will be available for schools from April 2017. Using demonstrations from and inspired by the Supercharged: Fuelling the future lectures, these shows will tie in with the UK national curriculum and aim to inspire the next generation of scientists. The show will be tailored to suit all ages of school students, aiming to reach 50 schools and over 7,000 students in 2017.
ICON first conference a great success
The International Consortium of Nanotechnologies (ICON) is one of three major grants awarded by the Foundation in nanotechnology. ICON’s aims are to develop a network of nanotechnology experts to address the threats and opportunities presented by nanotechnology. It does this through supporting PhDs and bringing the community together. On 7 April ICON held their first conference in Athens, Greece. A series of influential speakers shared their thoughts on nanotechnology including Giacomo Prando editor at Nature Nanotechnology, Laura Vivar, a final year PhD student in nanotechnology funded by the Foundation at National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) and Rebecca Boston, Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow sponsored by the Foundation, who all shared their experiences of careers in nanotechnology. See the ICON promotional video here.
Robotics and autonomous systems workshops
Following the publication of our foresight review in robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) we issued a call for expressions of Interest and received 80 responses from the global RAS community. We invited a cross-section to one of two workshops at our London offices to help identify what the industry needs in order for the wider benefits of RAS systems to be experienced in real world use. Although the participants represented different industries or areas of RAS interest, there was widespread confirmation that we had reported the correct priority areas in our foresight report. It emerged that there is a common topic that is holding back the wider application of RAS related to assuring autonomy, concluding that there is a need for a framework that can bring about convergence between technologists, industry and regulators. Such a framework would need to be cross-sector, independent, practical, authoritative, leading to rapid solutions and be of value to all stakeholders.
Foundation's grant data now shared through 360Giving
Data sharing helps makes grant making more visible, informed, strategic and effective.The Foundation is pleased to be one of the growing number of significant UK grant-givers to share our grants data through the 360Giving standard. 360Giving supports organisations to publish their grants data in an open, standardised way and helps people to understand and use the data in order to support decision-making and learning across the charitable giving sector. For more information see here.
Interactive map of our funded programmes
Our new interactive grants map shows the programmes we fund broken down by country.
View the map and our regional grant sheets here.
New grant funded
We are pleased to announce the award of funding to Warsash Maritime Academy /Southampton Solent University for their grant, an examination of the key safety, welfare and efficiency implications of assigning a stable or fluid crew to merchant navy vessels. This international industry supported project will examine the relative benefits of stable and fluid crewing strategies with stakeholders from the merchant shipping industry. Other industries, where more information exists, will also be examined. This has strong potential to increase vessel safety, efficiency and seafarers’ welfare and add high impact and value to the shipping industry.
Upcoming
Structural Integrity Conference
21-22 June: The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) is hosting its annual conference on the 21-22 June 2017 at TWI facilities, Cambridge, UK. See here for registration.
Risk Perception, Management and Communication Conference
27 July: Lloyd’s Register Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk Conference on Risk Perception, Management and Communication will be held at the National University of Singapore, Singapore.