University of Birmingham researchers are collaborating with BT to deliver a prestigious Industrial Fellowship awarded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. The fellowship was awarded to research professional Liam Bussey, who has worked at BT Labs since 2019.
Set up by Prince Albert to organise the Great Exhibition of 1851 and extended in perpetuity to invest the profits in UK innovation, the Commission has been supporting promising research ever since. For 170 years it has provided crucial support to advance R&D and help to make UK industry more competitive internationally.
Through the Industrial Fellowships which provide funding of up to £100,000, the Commission brings together industry and academia to create commercially viable research and solutions for the mutual benefit of all. Fellows conduct their doctoral research with a company in their chosen industry, bringing academic expertise and approaches to a commercial operation. This enables students to investigate new ways of thinking about traditional problems, and forge exciting career opportunities. The programme also equips companies with cutting-edge research without the premium price tag and strengthens links between universities and commercial organisations.
The impact of the 1861 Industrial Fellowships is estimated at £2 million a year in intellectual property, developing crucial new technologies and scientific advances that advance research fields and British industrial players.
Liam Bussey will be investigating how subtle changes in electromagnetic radiation (namely radio waves) can impact a beam of light, and how this information can be used to develop faster and more sensitive 5G receivers for a stronger communications network. It is hoped that by exploiting such scientific understanding, Liam’s team will pave the way for ultra-sensitive all-optical 5G receivers that can be distributed across optical fibres to pick up weak radio transmissions at higher rates with less power consumption. This project is the first in the world to investigate telecommunications applications of this potentially revolutionary technology.
To read more about Liam’s project, please visit the Royal Commission website.
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