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The international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, due for completion in the next decade, will be the world's largest astronomical instrument. It will be built by international industry at a cost of over €2B. The larger part will be sited in Africa (9 countries) with a complementary part in Australia. The impact to mid-2013 is on: i) international science policy and priorities (€26M); ii) multi-faceted human capacity building in Africa (401 bursaries); iii) business and employment involved in the construction of two large-scale SKA "precursor" instruments in South Africa and Australia (over €150M with 800 jobs in South Africa); iv) the local north-west economy (over €5M) where a new limited company to coordinate the SKA's design and construction has been established at Jodrell Bank.
Manchester research on differential protection, synchronised using the global positioning system (GPS), has opened up a radically new approach to protection and integrity of electrical transmission networks. The research has led to updating of international technical guides and international standards. In the UK, National Grid has implemented policies based on the research, which will save about £0.5m per annum in substation upgrade costs. The market for GPS synchronised differential protection products is £400m pa globally. This figure represents the "insurance premium" against the avoided cost of a power system failure, estimated in a report on the North-East USA blackout to be $6bn in economic cost and 11 directly attributable deaths.
Approximately 70% of the continental margins contain significant volcanic flows, created when continents broke apart. Because large quantities of hydrocarbons may be trapped in sediments beneath the lava flows the ability to image through the basalt layers is of tremendous commercial value. However, these lava flows impede conventional seismic imaging by scattering energy, thus blocking the view of what lies beneath. Professor White and his team developed a technique, based on work in the 1990's, for imaging through the lava flows which differs radically from the conventional commercial approach. Professor White's technique has been widely adopted by the oil industry and has had a dramatic global impact, particularly for companies expanding exploration into deeper waters, including the north-west margin of Europe, the South American coast, particularly off Brazil and the continental margins of India. This approach has now become the norm having been adopted by oil companies globally.
This case study concerns the reach and significance of the impact that the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the University of Manchester has had in three areas. The first concerns the impact on public imagination and the publishing industry, e.g., through (a) various media to influence the understanding of faith communities about the founding moments of Judaism and Christianity; and (b) the production of popular literature of international appeal. The second concerns the impact on public policy in the allocation of research and conservation funds in several countries. The third concerns international policy-making in heritage conservation.
Practical Waveform Engineering, developed at Cardiff, is having a major impact on how modern- day microwave power amplifiers are designed, delivering real competitive advantages for global communications companies such as Nokia-Siemens-Networks and M/A-COM.
Economic impact is through reduced time-to-market and lower design costs, leading to high- performance power amplifier products. Examples include $40M revenue and employment of additional staff for M/A-Com, and the successful spin-off company Mesuro Ltd., generating revenue in excess of £2.5M.
Impact on practice is through successful demonstration of new device technologies and amplifier architectures, the introduction of PWE-based CAD models, and most significantly, the introduction of the "Cardiff Model" into mainstream simulation tools.
Environmental Impact is by improving the efficiency of power amplifiers and significantly reducing the carbon contribution of mobile communications systems, translating into savings of approximately £2.5M/year and a 17 kiloton reduction in CO2 emission for a typical EU network.
The Compulsive Exercise Test (CET) and Loughborough Eating disorders Activity Programme (LEAP) are the world's first clinical assessment tool and intervention designed to assess and treat compulsive exercise among eating disorder patients. These advances have changed the way in which services now assess their patients and deliver treatment. They are currently in use by in excess of 52 specialist eating disorder services globally, including the vast majority of specialist services in the UK (a minimum of 520 patients treated to date). As well as delivering an assessment tool and manual, the impact also includes training of circa 600 clinicians and sports specialists.
The Rylands Cairo Genizah Project has had impact through its conservation, presentation, and interpretation of an internationally important archive of manuscripts which illuminate all aspects of the history, and the religious, social, and commercial life of the Jews in the Levant from the 9th to the 19th centuries. This collection is of deep interest to the Jewish community in the UK and abroad, and forms part of the cultural capital of this country, where the vast bulk of it is now housed. The project has also had an impact on heritage experts, by developing methods which have been applied to recording and disseminating other cultural assets.
The world's longest high capacity terrestrial commercial communications system, now deployed worldwide, was developed from Aston University's pioneering research on the concept of dispersion managed solitons. The concepts and expertise from this research were used to develop and implement the associated system design for high capacity (1Tb/s) WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) transmission over 1000s of kilometres. Commercial development was led by Prof Doran and the core team from Aston who left the University to found Marconi-Solstis, a part of Marconi plc. Prof Doran and other key members of this team have since returned to Aston The system, now owned by Ericsson, (but still called Marconi MHL3000) has current annual sales of order $100M, and employs hundreds of people worldwide.
Prof. White's research, and the associated computer algorithms he has developed,have played a key role in decision-making in the petroleum industry, particularly as the search for new resources has moved into increasingly hostile and remote regions on deep-water continental margins, where the uncertainty of exploration involves multi- million pound risks. The key to reducing the geological element of that risk is a detailed understanding of the structure and evolution of the thinned crust and lithosphere that underlie these margins. Prof. White's insights, algorithms and methodology are used by hydrocarbon companies, in particular BP Exploration, to predict hydrocarbon potential and to gain access to exploration acreage.
Research on ester liquids (ELs) has proved they can be used in high-voltage (HV) transformers, bringing economic and safety advantages to the power industry and environmental benefits to society. Impact includes revisions to National Grid's oil policy recommending ester-filled HV transformers for use in London and the design and operation of the first 132kV "green" transformer (valued between £1m and £2m). The research has led directly to the creation of two international standards for professionals in global power utilities specifying the use of ELs in transformers. These developments have contributed directly to Manchester SME M&I Materials increasing sales from £15m (2008) to £29m (2012).