The University of Bath’s Physics Department organised the fourth Eureka conference, Eureka 2024: Academia meets Industry, in the Chancellors’ Building on Thursday 11th July 2024. This one-day meeting was focussed on knowledge exchange and research impact, and provided a venue where companies small and large, start-up and established, could introduce their businesses, research challenges, and ideas for potential collaborations to academics from Bath and other GW4 universities. A broad range of scientific fields was represented at the conference including photonics, quantum technologies, medical science, advanced materials, nanoscience and theoretical physics.

Eureka 2024 attracted over 100 participants from GW4 universities, regional innovation centres and technology companies. These were able to showcase their expertise through oral pitches, posters and table-top exhibits. The programme began with an introduction to knowledge exchange and impact at the University of Bath from Prof Jonathan Knight, Vice-President (Enterprise), who described key case studies drawn from optical fibre research in Physics. This was followed by presentations on research capabilities and impact generation in the Bath Nanoscience and Theoretical & Computational Physics Groups given by Prof Daniel Wolverson and Dr Habib Rostami respectively. The second session of the day was an Industry Innovation Showcase in which members of GW4 innovation/accelerator centres were able to advertise their capabilities followed by promotional talks from three technology companies, Oxford instruments Plasma Technology, Quantum Design and The Training Marketplace. In a parallel two hour session, early career researchers were able to participate in a bespoke training programme supported by a grant from the University’s Research Culture Fund. Organised by Andrea Kelly, SETsquared Centre Manager, and co-delivered by four Entrepreneurs in Residence, this targeted support for idea creation, protection and routes to exploitation.

In the afternoon there were keynote lectures from Bruce Colley, Senior Investment Specialist at Innovate UK, explaining how they connect businesses to partners, customers and investors, and James Harrison, Technology Transfer Manager at RIS, who discussed important issues around IP protection, licencing and spin outs. Oksana Meleshykhina, Senior Technical Programme Manager at Microsoft, closed out the oral sessions with a presentation focussed on the empowerment of women working in high technology fields. This was followed by a round table Q&A session whose membership comprised stakeholders from all key areas of research, impact generation and commercialisation. These included the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) catapult, Diamond Light Source (DLS), Elsevier, as well as LabCycle and Siloton start-ups.

As the last event of the day a poster session was held in parallel with a drinks reception. Three best early career researcher poster prizes were awarded that had been generously sponsored by Best Scientific and Optica. These were won by Will Smith, University of Bath (1st place), Tanya Kushwahaa, Cardiff University (2nd place) and Leah Murphy, University of Bath (3rd place). The jury for these awards consisted of Prof Ventsi Valev (University of Bath), Prof Ruth Oulton (University of Bristol), Prof Rob Hicken (University of Exeter), Dr Nicolas Abadia (Cardiff University).

Head of the Department of Physics, Professor Ventsi Valev said: "I am immensely proud of our department's successful organization of the EUREKA 2024 conference. This event has been a remarkable opportunity to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial application, fostering collaboration and innovation. I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations and gratitude to all our colleagues whose dedication and hard work made this conference a resounding success. Together, we are shaping the future of Physics and creating valuable connections that will drive advancements in both academia and industry."

The Bath Knowledge Exchange Team and Research & Innovation Service representatives were on site all day to assist both companies and academics in their learning and information exchange and to provide support for kick-starting collaborations. The conference was sponsored by nine industrial companies, including Amplitude, Optica, Thorlabs, Renishaw, Quantum Design, SHI Cryogenics, Photon Lines Ltd, Best Scientific and Toptica.