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Research over the last 20 years by Jane Nicklin (née Faull) and her research group has established expertise in fungi, which has led to impacts in three areas: impacts on the licensing of commercial products for the control of insect pests which affect food crops, which have led to a new product being licensed in the US to the benefit of vine growers; impacts on heritage conservation, where the work has benefitted English Heritage, the National Trust and many other conservation groups; and impacts on public awareness and media engagement with science, in particular through her work with Channel 4's How Clean is your House? in 2009.
Research in the Mechanical Engineering Department has led to a series of experimental techniques for measuring the fundamental properties of lubricants in a scientific manner. These include measurement of the thickness, structure and properties of fluid and solid lubricating films, as well as the friction, fatigue and wear behaviour of lubricated surfaces.
Measuring instruments based upon these techniques have been commercialised by a spin-out company, PCS Instruments, which has now become the largest supplier of Tribology test equipment in the world. Over the period 2008-13 it had a turnover of £39.8M (£7.63M in 2012-13). The research has changed the way in which lubricants and lubricant additives are developed, with PCS test rigs in use in all the major lubricant and additive companies, as well as many University tribology research and National Standards laboratories. The techniques have enabled the development by industry of a new generation of high-efficiency lubricants for automotive applications.
Durham has a long-standing record of research into improving the resistance of crop plants towards pests, which includes pioneering work on genetic engineering of plants for insect resistance. The CpTI gene developed in Durham for enhancing insect resistance in transgenic crops has had a major impact on Chinese agriculture, due to the widespread deployment of GM cotton containing genes encoding Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin and CpTI. The SGK 321 transgenic cotton line was approved for commercial growing in China in 1999, and by the current REF period Bt/CpTI cotton was grown on approximately 0.5 million hectares of land, representing approximately 15% of the total transgenic cotton grown (which in turn represented 67% of total cotton production). The economic value of Bt/CpTI cotton is estimated as approx. £600 million per year.
Research undertaken by the University of Sheffield between 1999 and 2012 in functional oxide thin films was commercialised through knowledge transfer partnerships (KTP) with Ilika Technology. This directly led to over £1M in contracts and subsequent improvements in the commercial viability of the product base of blue-chip companies such as Toshiba, Toyota and Ceramtec and contributed to the increase in Ilika's turnover to ~£2M per annum and a growth in staff from 5 to 35 in 2012. In 2011, Ilika floated on the stock exchange with a valuation of ~£20M. The CEO has personally recognised the role Sheffield has played in establishing Ilika Technology as a limited company and in growing company revenue through contracts with leading multinationals.