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Almost 50 years to the day the United Kingdom and 11 other European
states formally brought into being the 'Conseil Européen pour la
Recherche Nucléaire', known throughout the world as CERN. For half a
century CERN and its scientists have explored the complexities and
challenges of particle physics, pushing back the boundaries and
re-writing the theories and textbooks as they went - all whilst working
in a climate of international co-operation and understanding. Today over
half the world's particle physicists, representing over 80 nations, come
to CERN for their research - it is no overstatement to say that CERN is
the leading institution of its kind in the world.
Since the first accelerator began operating in 1957, CERN has been
more than just a place where leading edge work in particle physics could
be found. It has been a place where some of the best minds in the world
have come together, whatever their nationality, to help explain the
building blocks of our universe and therefore our own existence.
The importance of 'Big Physics' to society today cannot be
overestimated, whether it be the future of accelerators, such as the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, or the new and exciting discoveries
and opportunities waiting to be revealed, or projects such as Aurora and
how the U.K.'s expertise in space exploration could be exploited on an
international scale, benefiting our science and industry communities
alike. There are exciting opportunities here through these and other
projects to enthuse and develop new, young scientists; to capitalise on
the knowledge and capability of U.K. industry in hi-technology science;
and to really put the U.K. at the forefront of 21st century exploration,
endeavour and discovery.
It was as a by-product of Big Physics that the World Wide Web had the
most humble of beginnings at CERN back in the early 1990s. I am sure
that not even the brilliant minds of Tim Berners-Lee and his esteemed
colleagues could have envisaged even a tenth of the impact that their
distributed information system, a means for communicating using
hypertext to link computers, would have on the world several years
later.
Ten years on and CERN is again at the forefront of the next generation
of computing with the development of Grid technology - the online
linking of computers to dramatically increase the capacity to analyse
and store huge amounts of data. It is anticipated that when the LHC
begins to operate in 2007, some 15 petabytes of data will need to be
stored every year - that's enough data to fill a stack of compact discs
twice the height of Mount Everest! Add to that the processing power of
100,000 high performance PCs and you can see why new and creative means
for dealing with the data generated are required.
It is extremely encouraging then to see that it is the U.K. and U.K.
researchers and scientists who are leading the way in this field. The
U.K. has contributed nearly 40% of all the dedicated resources allocated
to the LHC Computing Grid, leading the way in this new field of
computing application. In addition it would be no exaggeration to say
that the U.K.'s e-science programme in general is leading the way on the
international stage. U.K. scientists are in the vanguard of the Enabling
Grids for E-Science in Europe project, a project to create a truly
European Grid whose applications throughout society will be hugely
beneficial and far reaching for all, whether this be the development and
encouragement of the next generation of young scientists, the
applications of this new technology to our homes and places of work, or
the spin-out technologies and opportunities available to U.K. industry.
Today though we are all gathered here to look primarily at the latter -
at how to take the cutting edge science and the technology out of the
laboratories of CERN and into the market place.
As the title for today's seminar suggests, there are distinct
commercial opportunities to be taken from the 'Big Physics' that happens
at CERN. This can already be seen in the £22.5million in direct
procurement contracts that U.K. companies received from CERN in 2003.
Current Secretary General of CERN, Maximillian Metzger and former
Director General of CERN, Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn-Smith will speak
later on how CERN itself views its relationship with the industrial and
business worlds, in addition to CERN's ongoing relationship with the
U.K.
What I would like to concentrate on though is how the U.K. itself can
build upon its current long standing relationships with CERN. Not just
in the areas of procurement for projects such as the LHC but also in
taking advantage of the opportunities to benefit directly from the new,
cutting edge technologies that are being developed at CERN. Indeed, with
the build stage for the LHC coming to an end and the major contracts for
it already awarded, it is imperative that the U.K. looks to more
innovative and creative means to commercially benefit from and take
advantage of the new technologies being developed at CERN.
The Government has a clear vision of the role we want the U.K. to
play in linking scientific and technological research with commercial
opportunities. We also want to be a country with strong science and
technological links with the best research around the world, such as
CERN, so that we can always stay at the leading edge. But we also want
the U.K. to be a key hub in the global knowledge economy. Globalisation
means that the U.K. has increasingly to compete against countries with
significantly lower labour costs and reasonably well-educated labour
forces, countries like China where wages are less than 5% of those in
the U.K. If the U.K. is to develop and prosper in the future our economy
will need to be based on creative, innovative, flexible and
knowledge-intensive enterprise. This, hand in hand with the high
quality, precision manufacturing expertise already abundant in the U.K.,
will help propel the U.K. to the forefront of the global economy of the
21st century.
To this end I was most encouraged to hear of the establishment of CERN's
Technology Transfer Unit - who's founding Head, Juan Antonio Rubio, will
be speaking to you later on in the programme. For any companies here
today who are not aware of the Unit, I would strongly urge that they
find out about it. The Unit is a way-in to the sort of knowledge,
science and technology at CERN that U.K. companies should be looking at
and taking advantage of. I would also strongly urge such companies to
think laterally and innovatively as to the potential applications that
these technologies could be used for. Look beyond the complexities of
the science to the solutions and possibilities for wider commercial use.
I have also been most encouraged by the excellent work being
undertaken as part of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research
Councils', Technology Transfer Co-ordinator Programme. This
government-funded programme has been an excellent model of how
high-level science, innovation, knowledge transfer and commercial
opportunity can all come together. The programme, led by Nathan Hill who
will also be speaking later this morning, helps U.K. companies seeking
to build partnerships with CERN. Over the past two years, the programme
has carried out a number of technology surveys, led workshops and
brokered meetings to showcase CERN technologies to UK companies and
assist in the establishment of two spinouts and over a dozen
collaborative partnerships.
The programme also co-ordinated a recent DTI Global Watch Mission to
CERN to investigate Distributed Application Systems and its performance
in e-science and e-business. DTI Global Watch missions are technology
focused missions that allow U.K. sectors and individual organisations to
investigate leading edge science and technology at first hand. The
findings from these missions are an important way of keeping U.K.
industry informed about developments taking place overseas. The
programme for this afternoon's session is a direct result of one of
these missions and I am sure those of you attending will find the
outcomes and conclusions from the mission both interesting and
beneficial. For those of you not familiar with the DTI's Global Watch
Service and the other elements of support the service offers, I would
urge you to visit the Global Watch Service exhibition stand here today.
CERN in its 50th anniversary year can be seen then to offer the U.K.
many opportunities in the science, technology and commercial worlds. The
knowledge within CERN is a valuable resource waiting to be taken
advantage of, and if the U.K. does not do this then there are many other
countries that will. The opportunity may exist to develop the next World
Wide Web or the next MRI medical scanner and I would urge all of you
here today to take advantage of the opportunities CERN can offer.
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