A new vision for European collaboration against climate change

Imperial plays key role in UK/German conference held in iconic City building - News

By Danielle Reeves
Thursday 25 October 2007

Developing new green technologies to tackle climate change was the focus of a major international one-day conference held in London's famous 'gherkin' building this week. The 'Sharing the Vision' event, which focused on collaborations between the UK and Germany, was attended by representatives of Imperial College London, the College's Grantham Institute for Climate Change, the College's Energy and Environment Office, and Imperial Innovations – the technology commercialisation company based at Imperial.

'Sharing the Vision' focused on the announcement of Germany's new High Tech Strategy on Climate Security. The strategy sets out an integrated approach to climate security, bringing research, both basic and applied, business and politics together to tackle the challenge.

A panel discussion took place led by seven leading figures from the worlds of science, technology and industry, including David Evans, the Director of Innovation at the British Government's Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Christoph Huss, Senior Vice-President for science, traffic and vehicle regulations at the BMW group; and Susan Searle, Chief Executive of Imperial Innovations. The subject of the discussion was how to support a high tech revolution in order to achieve Europe's goals in tackling climate change.

Taking part in the panel discussion, Susan Searle said: "The most important thing is speed – we need to make the process of getting technology solutions to customers easier by providing funding to the right parties and supporting successes. There are many start-up ventures that can provide real solutions to some of the world's most pressing climate problems."

Dr Simon Buckle, Director of Climate Change Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, at Imperial College, emphasised the importance of this event, saying: "Making the transition to a low-carbon economy is absolutely critical and this event was a welcome contribution to the debate on how we make that happen. But as Lord Oxborough stressed, we don't have much time. Climate change is already happening. What the major economies do over the next 10-15 years in terms of their investments in new power stations, energy efficiency and clean transport will determine whether or not we can avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. I still don't think we've yet fully realised the scale and urgency of the challenge we face."

'Sharing the Vision' was organised by the German Embassy in London, German Industry UK, the City of London, the European Commission and Imperial College London.

The Grantham Institute for Climate Change was established at Imperial College London in February 2007 following a GBP 12 million donation from Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham. The Institute is stimulating a research drive to develop mitigation techniques to counter the effects of our changing climate, and to have a direct impact on public and private policy. So far, it has funded 7 new PhD research posts on subjects including carbon sequestration, flood and drought risks, novel photovoltaics, climate impacts on biodiversity, and wind energy. Further PhD and academic posts will be created over the next few months.

The Grantham Institute for Climate Change at the heart of Imperial's South Kensington Campus provides a focus for multidisciplinary research drawing on the existing expertise across the College's Faculties of Natural Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and the Tanaka Business School.

Imperial's Energy and Environment Office (EEO) draws upon the full range of experience and expertise within the College to initiate, support and promote interdisciplinary cross faculty research programmes both internally and externally. The EEO also works to assist in technology transfer, commercialisation and consultancy to maximise the value of Imperial's intellectual property and expertise.

Imperial Innovations is one of the UK's leading technology transfer, commercialisation and investment companies. The company's integrated approach encompasses the identification of ideas, protection of intellectual property, development and licensing of technology, and formation, incubation and investment in technology businesses. Based at Imperial College London, the company has established equity holdings in 74 technology businesses and is managing 133 commercial agreements as of 31 July 2007.

Imperial Innovations also commercialises technologies originating from outside Imperial College through incubation contracts with the Carbon Trust and WRAP, and has commercialisation contracts with a number of multinational corporations including BAE Systems.

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