ROPAs attract researchers to industry
15 Jan 2000
The government's Realising Our Potential Award (ROPA) scheme has been a success, claims science minister Ian Taylor. The scheme has led academia to forge and exploit new links with industry, he claims.
ROPAs have two aims: to encourage academics to obtain industrial funding, and to increase the government's support of `blue skies' research. In order to qualify, university researchers must already be funded by industry for strategic research, but the project considered must not itself be in collaboration with industry. `The nature of ROPA should not be misunderstood: it is a responsive mode award which funds work solely defined by the researcher,' Taylor stresses. Since the scheme was established in 1994, 974 ROPAs worth a total of £89.6million have been awarded, he added.
Meanwhile, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has called for bids for `Faraday Partnerships' (see PE, Jan 97, p23). Applicants should be research and technology organisations that can demonstrate `an existing strong connection' with both industry and academia.
The Faraday Partnerships have been awarded £1million-worth of funding for 1997-98 in the government's latest research councils funding figures, which will rise to £2million in 1998-99. However, EPSRC stresses, this money is intended as `pump priming'. The partnerships are intended to become self-supporting, with a combination of support from industry and funding `won in open competition from existing government schemes.'
