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Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted that you have been able to join
me here at Lancaster House this evening. Firstly to applaud the success
the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) is now achieving, but also to express
my gratitude for the work that so many of you, and especially the
executive directors of CMI, Michael Kelly and Ed Crawley, have put in to
ensure CMI has become the success it is now.
Science has always been a global enterprise. The
common laws of nature cross political boundaries, and the international
movement of people and knowledge made science global long before
“globalisation” became a label for the increasing linkages among the
world’s economies. And in the last two decades we have seen a surge in
collaboration within and across national boundaries.
More than half of all scientific articles were
co-authored in 1999 compared with 33% in 1986. During the same period
the share of international co-authored articles rose from 7% to 17% of
all publications. In other words more than one third of co-authored
articles were internationally co-authored.
The UK needs to be part of this global activity
if we are to get maximum value out of our outstanding science and
technology base, and in recent years we have sought to strengthen and
improve our scientific and technological relationships with other
countries.
That is why the Government strongly supported
the launch of the Cambridge-MIT Institute in July 2000. Since then CMI
has overcome many challenges and has begun to build links both with
business and other UK universities whilst also developing an excellent
portfolio of products in knowledge exchange and models of
university-business interaction.
We value highly educational programmes such as
the Praxis training programme and the six MPhil degree courses developed
by CMI. We also think that CMI has been successful in developing new
ways for business and universities to work together such as knowledge
integration communities. These enable researchers from Cambridge and MIT
to bring together a broad spectrum of stakeholders to tackle important
challenges such as the development of quieter aircraft and finding new
techniques of drug discovery. CMI’s Sector Interest Groups also have
great potential, enabling members to work on the key issues facing their
sectors.
As a result of the success of CMI, we have
recently sought to strengthen the links between our world-class research
universities and other world-class universities around the world, and I
was pleased to be able to announce a few weeks ago that we are providing
£6m to four collaborative projects which will link world-class British
Universities with world-class American ones to increase scientific
excellence and innovation.
These will include the University of Manchester
working with the University of Washington, and a wide range of
businesses on the development of composite materials for use in aircraft
design; Imperial College, London working with the University of Texas,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology on
the treatment of cancer and energy research; the University of Cambridge
continuing its productive partnership with MIT and a consortium of the
Universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey working with the
University of California, in the areas of wireless technology, life
sciences, the environment and advanced materials.
I hope that this exciting initiative will in due
course lead to other British universities linking up with other
world-class universities in other parts of the world.
The unique partnership between MIT and Cambridge
could not have been so productive without the commitment, dedication and
determination of all those involved to see the CMI experiment succeed.
It is through the efforts of Michael and Ed, working together with the
two institutions that such a large amount of progress has been made in
this sphere, and I would like to thank you both personally and on behalf
of the Government for the enormous contribution you have made.
I have high hopes for CMI in the future. I have
been talking to Mike Gregory about these issues for probably fifteen
years, and I am full of admiration for his energy, enthusiasm and
ability to get things done. I wish him every success on his appointment
as the new Executive Director and I look forward to CMI making an
exciting and increasing contribution to the scientific, technological
and entrepreneurial skills of the UK in the future.
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