Industrial Engagement

All research has impact

Sometimes it's just not clear what the impact is, was, or will be. My group works closely with the National Biofilms Innovation Centre and the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership to ensure the translation of our research to Industry. The reverse is equally important: many of our most interesting research questions have come from conversations with industrial partners that finish in: "but why does it do that?". I can't recommend site visits highly enough. We all take our day-to-day for granted and sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and say: but why?

Visit the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership for your soft matter/formulation/food and drink/biophysics needs.

Public Engagement and Outreach

Biofilms and microbes

Our Biofilms activities are described on the National Biofilms Innovation Centre website, including links to the Biofilm Brainhub created in collaboration with the Quadrum Institute, and a Biofilms Explainer put together with the Microbiology Society. You can download a card game, get inspiration for your own activity, and view a number of explainer videos.

Raising awareness

#BiofilmAware

Our campaigns #BiofilmAware and #BiofilmWeek aim to raise awareness of the presence and impact of microbial biofilms across day-to-day life. Each year we run art and photography competitions on the themes of biofilms in life and biofilms in the lab. Keep an eye out for our next competition by monitoring @ukbiofilms or myself on Twitter.

Policy

Engaging with Policy Makers

NBIC engages with Policy makers in Westminster and the devolved administrations to highlight the relevance of biofilms (and microbiomes!) to UK prosperity and innovation. One important aspect of our work is the development of Standards that will allow scientific advances to accelerate and enable industry to make product claims.