iSLI hosts 2nd Annual iSLI Influencers Dinner

iSLI hosts 2nd Annual iSLI Influencers Dinner

The Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI), located at the Alba Campus in Livingston, was pleased to host its 2nd Annual Influencers Dinner for prominent representatives from the UK microelectronics industry, academia and government bodies (Figure 2). The event took place at The Royal Scot's Club in Edinburgh and provided guests with a forum for informed debate at the highest level. Guests included MSPs, Bristow Muldoon and Alex Neil, and the guest of honour for the evening was Professor Randal Richards, Interim Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

 Figure 2 L-R: Professor Graham Bulfield, University of Edinburgh, Sir Muir Russell, University of Glasgow, Professor Andrew Hamnet, University of Strathclyde, Mr Tony Harker, CEO, iSLI, Mr Neil Francis, SEEL, Professor Andy Walker, Heriot-Watt University VP

The central theme for discussion focussed on how best to tackle the technology challenges facing the UK economy over the next 20 years and how government, academia and industry, including institutions such as iSLI, can sustain a science and engineering talent pool capable of keeping the UK skills base at the forefront of the twenty-first century's global economy.

Speaking at the dinner Tony Harker, CEO of iSLI, said: “It is our collective responsibility to inspire young students to enter the profession throughout their schooling through to undergraduate, postgraduate training and beyond. Together with our partners in industry, academia and government, we need to maintain a strong and healthy business sector to enthuse and inspire entrepreneurial spirit within students and support this with a well founded science and engineering base.”

iSLI has experienced a 30 per cent increase in uptake of courses and recruited a record number of engineers to its prestigious EngD scheme in the last 18 months, figures which are forecast to increase further in the next year. iSLI has also successfully attracted both funding and high calibre researchers in the micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) field recently, putting the institute in an even stronger position to exploit key skills by helping to better integrate the electronic and mechanical worlds.

Speaking on the success and expansion of iSLI, Tony Harker commented “Educational programmes which are focussed on the needs of our industrial and commercial base are vitally important and are of direct relevance to the UK economy. We are very pleased with iSLI's accelerated growth in the past year and are regularly adding new collaborators, for example, our EngD sponsors now total 56 projects from 35 different sponsors to date.”

Recent studies have highlighted the need to increase the commercially driven R&D activity within the SME community across the UK. The after dinner debate forum provided guests with a platform to not only air their views on this subject but also to debate the roles of government, industry and academia, and hence iSLI, in addressing this issue. It was identified that the UK needs to create people who can “make” ideas, a long- term goal that needs to start filtering through at the earliest stage possible, from pre-school through to university and beyond.

iSLI is already active in responding to this challenge through its research and education activities, e.g. fostering the growth of new companies via a software hub which provides support to the UK's indigenous electronics community by providing free access to a variety of leading edge industry design tools for SMEs and start-ups, significantly reducing the entry costs for these organisations.

Another topic for discussion during the evening was the attraction of high-tech investment to the UK. Guests debated the calibre of the UKs graduates and agreed that iSLI's flagship EngD scheme is an excellent vehicle through which top flight graduates with real world knowledge and experience may be seconded into companies, including SMEs and hence contribute positively to an organisation's growth.

iSLI is also forging key partnerships with industry to deliver an original MEMS commercial design and prototyping service for the UK, under the banner of the UK MNT Network. High value-added development outcomes which can be used by industry are confidently expected. Targeted areas will include bio- medical,photonics, micro-fluidics and integrated control applications.