Professor Tim Leighton to help showcase the UK’s world-leading research and innovation
Professor Tim Leighton, Chair and Founder of the University’s Network for Anti-Microbial Resistance and Infection Prevention (NAMRIP), will today (2 July) join more than 300 business leaders, entrepreneurs, world-leading researchers, parliamentarians and policymakers at The Research Councils UK (RCUK) first Research, Innovate, Grow conference.
Notes for editors
The event, at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, demonstrates the Research Councils’ ambition to ensure the UK remains the best place in the world to do research, innovate and grow business. It highlights some of the ground-breaking and innovative research funded by the seven Research Councils through interactive exhibits, with the researchers involved talking about their work with attendees.
NAMRIP is an interdisciplinary approach to research and collaboration, where engineers, physical and biological scientists and health science clinicians, along with researchers from Social Sciences and Business and Law, work together to combat increasing antibiotic resistance across healthcare and food industries.
Professor Tim Leighton said: “By 2050 drug resistant diseases could be killing more people than cancer, an extra 10 million deaths per year. They would also cause a loss to the global output of 100 trillion dollars - that is equivalent to a sum greater than the current global economy.
“Catastrophes in healthcare and food production will not be faced off by researchers who work in their isolated comfort zones, always suggesting their small area of expertise as the solution rather than working across disciplines to find the best solution. It is hard, but necessary, to work across the barriers between disciplines. The RCUK-funded NAMRIP aims to break down these barriers so that we can change the way people think about the problem and find the solutions.
“For example, engineers, physical and biological scientists, and social, human and health scientists, can talk to clinicians and food producers to understand the problems and design solutions. They can then work with psychologists and experts in ethics and law to ensure these solutions are usable; and then with business experts to find a way to make these solutions available on large scale and at price the user (NHS, farmers, etc) can afford. Medicine and health sciences academics can then provide clinical trials to ensure their effective scale up.”
Professor Rick Rylance, Chair of RCUK, said: “We are delighted to be holding such an exciting and engaging event to show how the UK is a world leader in research and innovation, with a reputation for excellence of which we are immensely proud. We truly punch above our weight on the global stage in terms of the quality of research we produce and its high impact on economic growth and prosperity. Strong, sustained investment in the UK research base is essential to strengthen and let fly the excellence, creativity and impact of the UK’s world leading researchers, innovators and businesses. We need to invest now to secure its future.”
Further information about Research Innovate Grow and the work of the Research Councils in securing this ambition is available in this short film and the Research Innovate Grow brochure.