I'm delighted to be speaking here at the 2017 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) conference. I hardly need to tell you what an important time this is for higher education in the UK.
Over the coming year, we will be putting into action the wide-ranging reforms set out in the Higher Education and Research Act (HERA).
Next year will see the launch of the Office for Students (OfS), which will take up the regulatory baton that HEFCE has borne for the past 25 years. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Madeleine, Tim, and all the staff of HEFCE for their service.
The birth of the OfS will mean the establishment of a new regulatory regime, with a strong focus on accountability, value for money and the student interest.
Our work to implement the HERA will also bring into existence a new national strategic funding agency, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
This is an important time for research in the UK as we put science and innovation at the heart of our industrial strategy and it is on this vital area that I want to focus today.
We have made a significant commitment as a Government to increasing the amount of R&D the UK undertakes as a country.
Last year there was a £4.7bn increase by 2020/2021 we announced in the 2016 Autumn Statement, itself the largest increase to public R&D for 40 years.
Meeting the new target will not be possible without the concerted efforts of Government, businesses, charitable funders and of course our brilliant researchers, not just the homegrown talent but critically also those who have been drawn here from all over the world.
And this is what I would like to speak about today.
It goes without saying that UK universities are renowned for the quality of their research. Indeed, today the government is publishing analysis by Elsevier that shows that the UK continues to punch above its weight as a research superpower.
In particular, the research shows that although the UK represents just 0.9% of the world's population, we account for 9.9% of downloaded academic articles, 10.7% of citations and 15.2% of the world's most highly-cited articles.
Relative to its comparator countries, the UK continues to rank number one Field-Weighted Citation Impact. This shows the vital importance of funding curiosity-driven research. It is something to be proud of and to protect.
But high quality publications do not by themselves guarantee impact in the world at large. Nor is there a simple, linear relationship between academic excellence and economic growth.
If the research that goes on in our universities is to have the greatest possible impact, our universities need to be deeply connected to the wider world. This is an important challenge for universities in any advanced economy.
But it is particularly important in the UK, because of the outsize role our universities play in our research and innovation system.
Over half of the money the UK taxpayer provides for R&D goes to the Higher Education sector - £4.8bn out of £8.8bn in 2015.
But the fact that by international standards an unusually large proportion of our R&D activity takes place within our universities brings with it increased responsibilities.
Because they loom so large in our research ecosystem, it is particularly important that our universities engage with the wider world, and help to ensure that their work leads to wider economic and social benefits.
Today I would like to focus on two ways in which universities can help us achieve our ambitious goal: knowledge exchange, and international engagement.
Universities' engagement with the wider world takes many forms.
Public attention often focuses on technology transfer, intellectual property (IP) licensing and high-tech spin-outs, but these are far from the only way universities contribute to innovation and growth.
Collaborative and contract research conducted with businesses, consultancy, training, and broader partnerships with businesses and with civil society are every bit as important.
And of course, most universities play an important local economic role, whether by participating in economic development efforts, in skills development or by acting as hubs for businesses.
The analysis of the 2016 Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HEBCI) survey, which HEFCE is publishing today, shows that this wider economic engagement is growing more slowly than the economy as a whole, at 1 per cent, and from a low base. It is also highly uneven, with parts of the country benefitting from it more than others.
Comparisons of our commercialisation activity with that of the US are revealing.
This is income that can be ploughed back into research in a virtuous cycle of scientific discovery and innovation. I see the evidence of this collaboration on the ground. Examples such as the collaboration between the University of Lincoln, Lincoln College and Siemens which is inspiring a new generation of engineering and scientific talent in the region. Or the decision by McLaren to site their new factory in Sheffield in order to collaborate with Sheffield University Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.
But the system as a whole needs to find a new gear.
The University of Queensland on Australia's Gold Coast is one institution we could learn from. Its long-established tech transfer subsidiary, Uniquest, helps it generate over AUS$30m a year from IP – more than any Russell Group university.
The rewards to good knowledge exchange can be very great: New York University earned more from Remicade, its blockbuster arthritis drug, in a year, than all UK universities put together.
Britain has had its home run successes too: consider the £64m that the Institute for Cancer Research made form licensing last year, or the University of Surrey's development of Surrey Satellite Technologies. But I would like to see these successes, and the wide range of business links that underpin them, become more common.
If we are to meet our national goals to increase R&D, we will need to continue to deepen these forms of engagement. Demonstrating this engagement and the associated economic impact will be important in making the case to the public and within government that increased public investment in research is justified.
We are taking a number of steps to drive engagement.
I welcome the decisions that HEFCE and HE funding bodies have taken to place greater emphasis in the next REF exercise on the impact of research - increasing weighting for impact to 25%).
Science & Innovation Audits are also helping to deepen the relationships between universities and their wider communities. Across the country, I have seen that the SIA process has not just identified the relationships between universities and their local partners, but helped define and strengthen them.
For example, the SIA for the Edinburgh City Region has helped them to develop a successful bid realising £300m in funding for data driven innovation. This maximises the opportunities afforded by the world class research base and will exploit the wide range of technologies being pioneered across the city region.
So, today I'm also announcing Wave 3 of SIAs - twelve more areas selected to map their local research, innovation and infrastructure strengths. As before, this round of SIAs will examine strengths in a number of sectors and disciplines, across the UK – from the Marine Economy in Scotland to Nuclear in the North West.
As before, this round of SIAs will be taken forward as collaborations between, universities, businesses and other institutions such as Local Enterprise Partnerships.
One of the most powerful tools for increasing engagement has been our investment in Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF). HEIF underpins knowledge exchange and tech transfer capabilities and supports skills development and entrepreneurship.
It provides universities with the resources needed to invest in partnerships: from developing tech transfer offices, to helping ease the movement of staff between academia and businesses. Many of the most important collaborative projects in England were enabled by HEIF. That is why we are providing an additional £40m a year for Higher Education Innovation Funding to help support commercialisation, taking the total to £200 million for 2017-18.
In addition, we are also encouraging universities to collaborate on the commercialisation of research and working with business. HEFCE launched a £100m Connecting Capability Fund in April, and today I am also pleased to announce the first four funding projects, which will collectively receive just under £20m.
• The first project is a collaboration between a group of universities in the East of England – Essex, UEA, and Kent – which aims to address the region's productivity challenges by supporting company development and entrepreneurial skills growth.
• The second project is a collaboration between a group of HEIs in the North of England – Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield – which aims to establish an investment fund to improve access to finance for university spinouts.
• The third is an extension of an existing collaboration between a group of universities in the South of England – the SET squared partnership – which aims to better support SMEs as they scale-up.
• The fourth is a collaboration between a group of universities and research institutes across the UK – Oxford, Birmingham, Dundee, and the Francis Crick Institute – which aims to support the development of new therapeutics to tackle age-related diseases.
It is noteworthy that the UK university system has public frameworks to track two of the missions of universities – the REF for research and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) for teaching outcomes – but nothing for the third mission of knowledge exchange and engagement.
Since its introduction under a different name in the 1980s, the Research Excellence Framework has become a familiar part of the higher education landscape, playing a vital role in ensuring we fund only excellent science.
I am keen to explore what more we can do to evaluate the extent of knowledge exchange, engagement, collaboration and commercialisation - the impact that universities are having on the economy – and to recognise which of our universities are leading the way.
We have the building blocks for such an assessment with the work undertaken by the knowledge exchange steering group led by Professor Trevor McMillan and considerable amounts of relevant data are already gathered, not least through the HEBCI survey and the HEIF process.
And there is evidence that there is excellent practice on knowledge exchange throughout the system: from Russell Group universities like Oxford and Leeds to newer institutions like Anglia Ruskin and Hertfordshire.
But at present this information is hard to access. And it is not weighted to reflect the differences in size and research income between different institutions. Therefore it does not have the impact it might in terms of identifying outperformance and underperformance.
With this in mind, I will be asking Research England within UKRI, working with the OfS, to consult with the sector and advise on the development of a new, public Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), that brings together a comprehensive range of measures of impact from collaboration and knowledge exchange.
Our ambition is that the new KEF will become an important public indicator of how good a job universities are doing at discharging their third mission, just as the REF rewards excellence in research and the TEF rewards excellence in teaching and student outcomes.
This will enable universities to benchmark and develop their own performance, and will increase universities' accountability to taxpayers, local government and businesses.
Alongside better data on knowledge exchange, there is also a case for greater investment that is directly linked to institutional performance in terms of knowledge exchange and tech transfer.
I am struck whenever I visit universities by the impressive initiatives and ventures that have been enabled by HEIF funding.
The University of Central Lancashire, which established its Centre for SME Development in 2016, is a case in point. Its first annual report showed that it had interacted with more than 500 Lancashire SMEs. Its current funded business support projects for SMEs are worth almost £10m and are set to reach almost 1,000 SMEs in the region.
Or take Reading University, which is investing in a new inter-disciplinary Centre for Food, Nutrition and Health. This will extend its relationships with the agri-food industry, enabling it to deliver research, innovation and education that addresses their needs and contributes to economic growth in the sector.
I believe it is possible to do more. We have already reiterated the important contribution that HEIF is playing to the delivery of our Industrial Strategy through the £40m pa uplift taking HEIF to £200m in 2017-18. The Witty Review recognised the critical role of HEIF and recommended increasing funding to £250m pa and I am keen that we take steps to do so.
In addition, I am asking UKRI and Research England to consider the right balance between HEIF and quality-related (QR) funding – so that as we give recognition to the vital role that universities must play in their engagement with others in the UK economy, we do not lose sight of the need to support curiosity-driven science that has no immediate commercial goals.
This is not just because the pursuit of knowledge is the hallmark of a civilised society, and a good thing in and of itself, but because unanticipated scientific breakthroughs can turn out to be even more valuable than the outcomes of agenda-driven research.
I believe this stronger commitment to knowledge exchange and engagement will give universities the confidence they need to set ambitious plans and bold partnerships – benefitting national and local economies, and society at large.
The second aspect of deeper engagement I would like to discuss is engagement with the wider world. Today's Elsevier report shows the remarkable global reach of UK research. It shows that over 51% of all UK publications in 2017 were co-authored, highlighting that UK researchers are highly collaborative internationally. The only other comparator country to surpass the UK was France, ahead of the UK by just 0.3 percentage points. And the UK's share of international co-authorship has increased annually from 2010.
Importantly, internationally co-authored articles are generally associated with a higher field-weighted citation impact. Continuing to work with international partners is critical - our research strength and our innovation have been built upon a history of collaboration.
As the Government set out in its recent paper, we will be seeking an ambitious science and innovation agreement with the EU - one that continues high levels of collaboration with European partners on major science, research, and technology initiatives.
In her Florence speech, the PM set out the UK's commitment to developing the deep and special relationship we have with Europe. She said "We may be leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe". Continuing with - and building on - our collaboration with our European partners will remain critical to our long-term economic development. So, we have made our intentions clear in this area.
We want to remain a player in European science, research and innovation programmes. And we will continue to attract the best talent from across the world, including the EU.
The UK will continue to welcome the brightest and best from across the world, including the EU. The UK will remain a hub for international research and innovation talent.
So, we will continue to increase our levels of international engagement on science research and innovation. Not just with Europe, but across the world.
For example, UK-US collaborations have resulted in 26 Nobel prizes for science and economics. Nearly 14% of the UK's internationally co-authored papers are with the US, almost double the next nearest country - Germany. And the UK is the number one destination for US R&D company investment outside of the US, accounting for over 10% of US foreign R&D investment.
That's why, last month I signed the first formal Science and Technology Agreement with the US, providing a framework for UK institutions to collaborate on joint scientific research and technology programmes with the US.
We recently agreed to invest £65m in our ongoing partnership with the United States on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which will probe fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the evolution of the universe.
Alongside this, we have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Canada which will strengthen bilateral cooperation in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. The MOU kicks off work to build lasting partnerships between our science and innovation agencies, and will initially focus opportunities in the fields of quantum technology, clean technology, agri-tech, and advanced manufacturing. But we don't want to stop there - this is a model that we are keen to repeat with other countries to further expand and enhance our global partnerships.
And that's why I'm pleased to announce that Government is investing an additional £18m in the Rutherford Fund this year in 2017/18 to attract the brightest research talent to the UK. This builds on the £100m that we have already committed to Rutherford over the next 4 years.
This new funding will enable more than 200 additional significant fellowships to start in the current financial year, at our world class institutions, including at the Crick and the Turing Institutions, at UK museums, at the British Academy and at UK universities. It also includes 50 Commonwealth Fellowships.
Our ongoing investment in talent will help to reinforce the UK as the go-to country for innovation and discovery.
Reinforcing the importance of the humanities and social sciences, £5m of this global talent funding is through the British Academy's flagship Post-Doctoral fellowship scheme with leading universities - delivered alongside a further £5m to support and develop domestic research talent.
So, Science, Research and Innovation are central to our industrial strategy and will be critical to the UK economy in the future – it improves our productivity, the economy and helps people prosper across the country. Universities' engagement and collaboration with others – domestically and internationally - is now more important now than ever and I and other Ministers in this Government, through our industrial strategy, will be doing everything we can to support them.


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3 Top Stocks to Buy in December
Put these great growth stocks in your Christmas stocking.
Give yourself a gift that keeps on giving. No, I'm not talking about a subscription to the "Jelly of the Month" club like Clark Griswold received in the movie Christmas Vacation. Buy growth stocks that could deliver great returns over the long run.
If you're wondering which stocks would be great to put in your stocking, I think three especially stand out: Elastic (NYSE:ESTC), MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB), and Square (NYSE:SQ). Here's why these three top stocks look like smart picks to buy in December.
1. Elastic
You probably use a search engine nearly every day. Corporations and government agencies need to search data, too. Elastic's software platform enables them to search their data as well as analyze, manage, and visualize it. Market researcher IDC thinks the expansion of stored data will be "never-ending," with the total data stored globally skyrocketing more than fivefold over the next six years.
Business is booming for Elastic. The company reported sales of $101.1 million in its latest quarter, up 59% year over year and 63% on a constant-currency basis. It counted over 9,700 customers at the end of its fiscal 2020 second quarter, over 10% growth from the previous sequential quarter. Elastic's net expansion rate, which measures increased spending by existing clients, topped 130% for the 13th consecutive quarter.
It's not hard to figure out why Elastic is growing. The company's Elastic Stack platform gives customers exactly what they need to search data at a lightning speed. Elastic Stack operates on a distributed model, which means all customers have to do to increase capacity and speed is to throw more servers into the mix. Elastic also continues to roll out new capabilities to help customers manage their data more effectively.
The total addressable market for Elastic is around $45 billion annually. Elastic's sales this year won't even total 1% of that market. I think this stock has a massive growth runway ahead of it.
2. MongoDB
MongoDB is similar to Elastic in some ways. Both are fast-growing technology companies with software that can run in a cloud environment or in an on-premises environment. Both use a "freemium" model with open-source software that can be downloaded for free, with customers paying for added features and support.
But while Elastic enables customers to search and analyze data, MongoDB enables them to store their data. Of course, databases have been on the market for decades. Unlike legacy databases like those from Oracle and Microsoft, though, MongoDB designed its database from the ground up to support unstructured data (images, texts, etc.) -- the kind of data that's largely driving the growth that IDC projects.
Mongo delivered 67% year-over-year revenue growth in its fiscal 2019 second quarter. The company's Atlas cloud-based database software fueled much of that growth and continues to gain momentum. Its net expansion rate remains over 120%, which is a very healthy level. I look for Mongo to report more strong results when it provides its Q3 update on Dec. 9.
Currently, the global database market stands at close to $64 billion annually. It's expected to jump to $98 billion over the next four years. Like Elastic, MongoDB captures less than 1% of its addressable market right now but is gaining an increasing share every quarter.
3. Square
If you've made a purchase from a small business, there's a very good chance you've encountered Square in action. The company is a leader in providing payment solutions for merchants, primarily small-to-medium sized businesses.
We can't peg Square as only a financial technology company for these businesses, though. The company's Cash App peer-to-peer payments app generates more than one-fourth of its total revenue. Cash App is also giving PayPal's Venmo a run for its money.
Thanks in part to Cash App's growth, Square's revenue continues to soar. The company reported total net revenue of $1.27 billion in Q3, up nearly 44% year over year. Its bottom-line growth was even more impressive, with earnings jumping almost 50% higher than the prior-year period total.
Square's total addressable market is $3 trillion in gross payment volume -- but that only represents the U.S. payment processing market. The company is expanding its ecosystem in several ways. It's also working to entice customers to use more of its products beyond payment processing. I view Square as one of the most attractive stocks to profit from the ongoing "war on cash."
NASDAQ:MDB
NYSE:SQ
Elastic N V
NYSE:ESTC
PYPL
PayPal Holdings
NASDAQ:PYPL
NASDAQ:MSFT
NYSE:ORCL
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3 Top Stocks to Buy in December @themotleyfool #stocks $MDB $SQ $ESTC $PYPL $MSFT $ORCL Next Article

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Participants of the Passivhaus Student Competition took the opportunity to visit a phased London Estate regeneration development with its sights set on Passivhaus. The 249-home estate in Camden is part of the Council's Community Investment Programme and will almost double the amount of housing available on the same site after regeneration. The phasing of the scheme allows the option for most tenants to be decanted from their old housing block to new homes as and when they are completed.
As well as increasing site density, the proposed arrangement of the new blocks aims to create a more secure estate by creating communal shared open spaces and knitting into the existing streetscape by extending roads into the development.
It's big and simple. It's got a Form Factor Ratio (heat loss area / treated floor area) of 1.6, making the shape one of the most efficient in the UK. Typically, bungalows are around 4 and a terrace of houses may be about 2.5.
It faces south, with balconies to provide good shading. This means great potential for solar gains during the winter but also well shaded in the summer.
The efficient form and useful solar gains means the U-values can be a lot higher than you'd usually expect on a Passivhaus – walls are around 0.21W/m2K with only 150mm of insulation.
Summer comfort is critical for high density buildings that are airtight and well insulated. For this reason, a lot of care is being taken over the building services to ensure they are not heating up the building. Hot pipework is kept as short as possible, and very well insulated. To help keep ducts short, most of the homes will be served by two air handling units on the roof. The central system is easier to maintain, has less penetrations, better air quality and less noise than individual units. Maisonettes on the first two floors have individual units.
This is the first Passivhaus being built by main contractor Hill. Successful delivery of airtightness targets <0.6, and the building to comply with certified Passivhaus criteria are included in the design & build contract.
Achieving the airtightness on this scale is easier in many respects, but much harder to test for. The airtightness layer is on the outside of the blockwork which is unusual, and has the advantage that there are fewer internal walls and floors to get in the way.
It has been a huge learning curve. An airtightness champion is appointed, and there is a Quantity Surveyor whose sole job is to constantly check workmanship of the various trades on-site. We did investigate value engineering certain elements but found that what were deemed miniscule changes had significant impact on the Passivhaus performance. Those changes had to be re-assessed in the PHPP model by Architype, which involved further costs, and may actually negate the savings trying to be made in the first place.
Hill advised all subcontractors to maintain staff for this project. Four people carried out most of the airtightness taping on block A. During interim airtightness testing, all the trades were present, to highlight any errors or necessary rectification, and the importance & impact of workmanship.
An in-house Passivhaus consultant was appointed to tailor Passivhaus training specifically for the project on-site, which was delivered by Marine Sanchez from Enhabit. The training accompanied with clear visual construction sequence drawings, and prototypes of airtightness taping really helped the construction team.
The Trust and Tarmac would like to thank Camden Council for allowing the students to visit and Hill Group & WARM for sharing experiences on such an exciting and challenging large scale Passivhaus development.


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Show, Don't (Just) Tell (updating a handout)
I trimmed out some stale examples and added these examples to my handout on showing and telling.
What if your goal were to write about your favorite sport.
Telling (No Details)
I like many different sports, from skiing to rock-climbing, but when it comes right down to it, I would have to say that ping-pong is my favorite sport.
(Snooze. This kind of writing can help you meet a word count, but it really boils down to "I like ping-pong." All the rest is filler. There's nothing in this passage that expresses how the author feels about ping-pong, and nothing that informs or persuades the reader.)
Telling (Dry Details)
I think ping-pong is a really interesting sport. Casual players may find it relaxing, but to get really good, you need manual dexterity, agility and endurance.
(While the author has added details, those details merely assist the telling — this passage still starts out with a version of "I
like ping-pong." A reader who doesn't already love ping-pong will have no reason to change his or her mind.)
Showing with Detail
Ping-pong may look like a relaxing pastime, but for experts, winning the game requires manual dexterity, agility, and endurance.
(While there's nothing particularly engaging in this opening, if the rest of the paper demonstrates that, in order to make
the transition from "relaxing pastime" to "winning the game," you need "dexterity," "agility" and "endurance," then you see that this sentence isn't just a random list of stuff to talk about. This opening line isn't just throat-clearing or filler — it's a carefully chosen table of contents, mentioning the topic of each of the supporting paragraphs.)
Showing with Emotion
He's drenched in sweat, his knuckles are white, he's on the other side of the ping-pong table, and I'm about to bring him down.
(There's no need for the author of the last sample to write, "I like ping-pong" or "ping-pong is more serious than you think," because the vivid details all show these points. The fact that the opponent is sweating means you need endurance. The fact that his knuckles are white suggest he's nervous. The author's claim "I'm about to bring him down" suggests that attitude and psychology play a role in ping-pong. This document might not be as technically or factually informative as the "Showing
with Detail" paragraph, but if your goal is to convey the idea that ping-pong is worthy of serious attention, then you might motivate your reader to reconsider their opinion of the game.)
10 Sep 2010 in Academia, Games, Humanities, Language, Writing.
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