I am delighted to be here today to open the Medical Engineering Laboratories at the Queen Mary, because it gives me the opportunity to congratulate those who are involved with this exciting development. I would also like to thank Mrs Hyacinth Kidman for her generous support of student scholarships in the Medical Engineering Division.
Over the last decade, Queen Mary has strengthened its international reputation in the field of Bioengineering and has attracted significant funding from the Research Councils, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and the European 5th Framework Programme. These new laboratories represent a major investment in state-of-the-art infrastructure for the University, and for Bioengineering in the UK.
The field of Bioengineering is an exciting area and is moving rapidly, not least because of the clinical importance of the area and the size of the worldwide market. Recent estimates suggest that the world wide market for tissue engineering alone is currently about $2.5 billion and is growing at 16% per annum. Expanding markets include those of wound care, orthopaedics and cardiovascular repair.
Research at the QM
Bioengineering at the Queen Mary has grown from strength to strength during the last ten years, particularly since the establishment of the University's Interdisciplinary Research Centre (IRC) in Biomedical Materials in 1991.
Scientists at the Medical Engineering Division are already making tremendous contributions to our understanding and treatment of diseased and damaged tissue. For example, researchers have developed novel optical techniques to assess biomechanical behaviour. Multidisciplinary tissue engineering approaches have been used to investigate the repair of load-bearing structures, such as cartilage and ligaments. And exciting research in medical electronics and physics may solve practical problems in physiology, surgery and anaesthesia.
Together with other research institutions, medical schools and hospitals in the area, this international centre of excellence plays a significant role in making London a world-leading hub in the biomedical sciences.
Bioengineering and Interdisciplinary Research
I would also like to congratulate the University on fostering interdisciplinary research, and its foresight in creating the Medical Engineering Division within the Department of Engineering in 1999. This vision has led to sustained expansion in the field, facilitating wider participation from other groups, such as the School of Medicine and Dentistry.
As an aside, one of the tasks we all have is communicating to young people that engineering today is not about the industries of the past but about the future, bioengineering, opto-electronics, aerospace, telecommunications and nanotechnology.
Today, scientific progress is moving with unprecedented speed. In many exciting areas of biomedical research, our advancing knowledge promises to revolutionise the way disease is detected, treated and prevented. Interdisciplinary research is vital for fields such as structural biology, bioinformatics, post-genomics, nanotechnology and imaging to proceed.
The Government is committed to fostering an environment to support cross-disciplinary research and strong global links for our science base. RCUK, the new strategic oversight body for the Research Councils, will promote stronger collaborative working between all the Councils and between the Councils and other stake-holders.
I am also delighted that, a partnership involving Queen Mary along with five other academic institutions and four companies have just been awarded a new Faraday Partnership in Medical Devices. This partnership, supported by the DTI, EPSRC and BBSRC will bring together medical engineering experts from industry and academia, to develop and commercialise medical devices and biomaterials for new and improved patient treatment. As a Government we want to support both outstanding research, and make certain that it is transferred into our society as soon as possible to improve wealth creation and the quality of our lives.
The Government believes that the quality of our science and engineering base is a great national asset and that scientists must be properly resourced if they are to take advantage of the many opportunities. Following substantial real terms increases for science in earlier Government Spending Reviews, this July we announced that, over the next three years, the Science Budget will increase by an average of 10% per year in real terms. In cash terms, by 2005/06 the UK science budget will be twice what it was in 1997/98.
We have also established a dedicated stream of capital funding for research infrastructure. This will build to £500m a year by 2004-05. We are improving support for postgraduate study and careers. Research Council-funded PhD stipends will increase to at least £12,000, and the salaries of postdoctoral researchers will increase by £4,000 by 2005-06.
We also recognise the importance of facilitating transfer of knowledge from the excellent research in our science base. We will be making £170m available to universities for this purpose over the two years to 2005-06.
The opening of these laboratories at Queen Mary are an important and valuable initiative, and I am delighted to be able to come here this morning to see them and also to hear about the University's tremendous achievements in the field of Bioengineering.
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