Category: Telecommunications

Meet the CSEP Team Series: Prof James Moore Jr

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became involved in the CSEP project on the UK MedTech sector?

I trained as a mechanical engineer and then pursued a PhD in biomechanics. Specifically, looking at the role of blood flow in disease development and treatment. That led me into inventing and developing cardiovascular implants. I was part of a few start-ups early in my career and continue to develop devices. Most of my research and development efforts these days is focused on the lymphatic system. For example, we are developing a device to prevent/treat lymphoedema in the arms of breast cancer survivors (lymphamotus.com). I teach medical device entrepreneurship and fluid mechanics in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial. All this provided some good background to get involved in CSEP to analyse the UK MedTech Sector.

What inspired your involvement with CSEP? 

The potential to have a positive impact on the UK MedTech sector is exciting, and my main motivation for working at CSEP.  It is a strong but under-appreciated sector of the UK economy, so there is a lot of potential already.

What drew you to take on the challenge of analysing the UK MedTech sector, and how did that experience shape your perspective on the intersection of technology, business, and policy?

I was fortunate to be invited to lead the analysis of the UK MedTech sector back in 2020.  That work was generously supported by Lord Sainsbury.  I had to climb quickly up the learning curve on economics!  Along with others at Imperial that did reports on the BioPharma and Telecomms sectors, those projects led to the establishment of CSEP.  I am intrigued by the vision to have technical and business experts collaborate to improve productivity and societal benefit.  The MedTech activity has led to the formulation of a strategy to grow the entire HealthTech* sector, written in collaboration with the Association of British HealthTech Industries.  That is the first strategy document produced by CSEP, and I look forward to seeing more strategies being developed for other sectors.

*HealthTech refers to technologies that might enable anyone to monitor or improve their health, whereas MedTech refers to the subset of those technologies that claim medical benefit and therefore require regulatory approval.

Could you share some of the major inspirations that have guided your career and intellectual interests?

My career has benefited from the influence of many scientific discoveries, technological developments, and even other musicians.  It’s difficult to name a single one but a fantastic book that combines all these interests is “This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin.

What are your interests outside your work?

Music is my main hobby.  I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was about 10 years old, so you could say that I am still trying!  I play several instruments and sing in two different bands.  One is a group of biomechanics profs that has been playing at conferences for over 20 years.  The other is our departmental band that plays at functions like the Christmas party.  It’s all good fun.  I’m also working on an album of mainly original music.  Otherwise, I used to play Ultimate Frisbee competitively.

Meet the CSEP Team Series: Dr Nigel Steward

 

Welcome to the CSEP team! Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional background?

I have recently joined the CSEP team after spending 36 years in industry where I worked in the fields of R&D, Energy and Climate Change, Supply Chain, and Technical Capability building, as well as Operations Leadership and Management where, I ran global businesses in Technology Transfer and Equipment Manufacturing, Electrode manufacturing for the aluminium industry, and Copper and Diamonds production. I am a Materials Scientist by training and studied for my degree and doctorate here at Imperial.

What projects are you working on currently and what part of your work is most exciting for you right now?

At CSEP we have been studying the HealthTech, Aerospace, Fine Chemicals, Telecom, Cyber Security, Automotive, BioPharma, Clean Energy, Data Centre, AI Assurance, and Insurance sectors. What I find exciting is learning about these sectors that are very new me, the new breakthroughs that are being made in technology, and business models and the market disruptions and opportunities that they bring. What I especially enjoy is learning from the brilliant academics and business leaders all over the country who are making these things happen. If all this wasn’t enough what brings the greatest satisfaction is seeing our business-led, sector growth strategies come to life and be delivered. Our first sector strategy plan has been created with the HealthTech Sector in collaboration with the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI) and we have recently had success in seeing one of our growth actions being implemented. Making a difference in the world is what is most exciting.

What attracted you to working at CSEP?

When I retired from industry earlier this year, I was looking for something to do where I could put my skills and experience to good use for a greater good. The role of CSEP is to see how science, technology, market and business model disruptions can be used to find new growth pathways and competitive advantage for key sectors of the UK economy, all with the overarching goal of stimulating more growth for the UK economy. The work is very much aligned with the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy goals and aligned with my own goal of contributing to society in a meaningful way.

What specific research topics or areas are you most passionate about?

What I have always been most passionate about is learning and discovery and implementing what I have learned to make the World a better place. The work at CSEP offers these possibilities in bucket loads!

 

Making Britain a global leader in telecoms regulation

Authors:
Professor Eric Yeatman, Professor Chris Tucci & Dr Marika Iivari.

Telecoms is vital national infrastructure that allows us to communicate with people virtually anywhere, whether we are on the go, at home, or at work. In Britain, the industry is well-established and a handful of major players dominate the market. The sector employs 200,000 people, double that of Germany, and provides £38 billion in GVA to the UK economy annually.[1] The industry is also changing with the arrival of 5G and ultimately 6G and the convergence of telecoms with technology such as AI. This presents an opportunity to make the British economy more productive and competitive. But we can only grasp it with the right environment for telecoms companies to succeed.

Using telecoms to drive UK competitiveness and growth

Imperial’s Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance (CSEP), which launched in January 2024, explores ways to improve Britain’s economic competitiveness and drive economic growth.[2] It looks at areas such as competition and technological disruption that demand a joint business, innovation and policy response. Telecoms is an area that we believe has the potential to transform the British economy’s growth outlook. I co-authored a report which examined the industry in detail and provided a list of policy recommendations.[3]

The value of connections a thousand times faster

When we think of telecoms we might picture home broadband boxes and mobile phones or the masts and cables that support this technology. Yet telecoms is about much more than that. It is almost impossible to run a small business without an internet connection, let alone a hospital or a government department. Telecoms is the enabler for practically every other part of an advanced economy. While it represented 20% of the digital sector’s growth between 2010 and 2019, which in turn contributed £150.6 billion to the British economy in 2019.[4]

Telecoms, then, should not be measured by its GVA alone. As 5G is adopted as the next generation technology standard for cellular networks, and more things come online, this will be even more the case. 5G offers speeds 100 times greater than 4G and downloads much faster than WIFI, but also provides other advantages including support for real-time applications such as autonomous vehicles and virtual reality. Its speed, reliability and new capabilities will mean that for a growing number of systems, such as energy grids, transport networks and hospitals,  the internet will  not just be a means of communication but will be a core part of how they are controlled and managed. 5G adoption will go hand in hand with AI adoption and these technologies will converge to create a new, more powerful, kind of internet.

Productivity gains of £159 billion but an unbalanced investment burden

The rewards are potentially vast. The Department for Science Innovation and Technology predicts productivity gains of £159 billion between now and 2035 on account of 5G.[5] This technology will have other significant uses in Britain, too, whether in reducing carbon emissions or making public services more efficient. This is before we consider 6G, a technology that is expected to come online by the next decade.

None of this is achievable without telecoms companies, but the long-term profitability of the industry is the concern of our report. While companies have invested billions in infrastructure, such as 5G base stations, they can struggle to generate a return on their investment. Meanwhile companies that depend on this infrastructure, such as Amazon, Meta and Google, generate vast profits. Telecoms operators provide the investment burden, but it is non-UK based big tech companies that take the lion’s share of the rewards, with only a handful of major customer-facing content providers based in Britain.

The UK can grasp the rewards with the right regulation

That is not to say British telecoms companies haven’t explored other avenues for growth. In 2022, for instance, BT invested nearly £100 million in the development of business-to-business and business-to-government products that bring together 5G and the internet of things, cloud and edge computing, and AI. The same year, Vodafone and Ericsson partnered in a trial to experiment with virtual reality and network slicing which provided users with an enhanced cloud gaming experience. Yet telecoms companies will not fully grasp opportunities like these without the right regulatory environment. Nor will Britain. It is incumbent, then, on policymakers to change this.

Our report contains thirteen recommendations. Broadly speaking, they refer to deeper collaboration between industry, academia and government to support business innovation; new regulations that include both an international role for Britain in new standard setting and measures to protect the country’s vital telecoms infrastructure and guarantee its strategic autonomy; and the need to consider the broader social and environmental applications of new technologies, particularly where regulation is concerned. The recommendations are spelled out in detail in the report.

The telecoms industry is changing, with the potential to unlock billions for the British economy. Our approach to collaboration and regulation must change too.

Professor Eric Yeatman is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London and co-author of ‘Sectoral Systems of Innovation and the UK’s Competitiveness: The UK Telecommunications Sector’. He is an expert in micro-technologies for sensing, communications and other applications, and has published over 350 papers and patents in these and related areas.   He is Chair and co-founder of I-X, Imperial College’s multi-faculty initiative in AI, and was the co-founder and Chairman of Microsaic Systems. He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2011, and was made a Fellow of the Academy in 2012.

The Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance at Imperial College London investigates how to improve the competitiveness and productivity of the UK economy and drive economic growth. It is a joint initiative between Imperial’s Faculty of Engineering and the Imperial College Business School – bringing together the UK’s top engineers, scientists and economists with the UK’s science and technology industries to address the major global challenges facing economies such as net zero, economic competition, and technological disruptions.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-monthly-gva-to-december-2022/using-annual-estimates-from-summed-monthly-gva-data-digital

[2] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/sectoral-economic-performance/

[3] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/research-and-innovation/the-forum/public/Sectoral-Systems-of-Innovation_Telecommunications_June-2023.pdf

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-economic-estimates-2019-gross-value-added/dcms-economic-estimates-2019-provisional-gross-value-added

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-wireless-infrastructure-strategy/uk-wireless-infrastructure-strategy#:~:text=By%20transforming%20our%20economy%2C%20widespread,every%20corner%20of%20the%20country.