Innovate UK

Industrial Energy Transformation Fund Podcast - Episode 5: Decarbonising the Ceramics Industry

Welcome to episode 5 of the IETF podcast, where we have the privilege of hearing from Guy Armitage of the York Handmade Brick Company and Stephane Vissiere representing Wienerberger.

In this episode, we discuss the unique challenges that the ceramic sector collectively faces as it moves towards the ambitious goal of achieving net-zero emissions. Our discussion also delves into the innovative strategies these companies are hoping to implement with support from the IETF. Join us for this insightful discussion of the ceramic sector's path to sustainability.

Guests:

Guy Armitage | Managing Director – York Handmade Brick Company 

Stephane Vissiere | Wienerberger 

Industrial Energy Transformation Fund Podcast - Episode 4: Decarbonising the Drinks sector

In this episode, we speak to Calvin Winch from Britvic and Andy McKnight from Heineken about the decarbonisation journey faced by the drinks industry.

Our podcast takes a deep dive into the many challenges that the drinks sector faces as it moves towards achieving net zero emission targets. We explore the advantages of having an engaged public aligned with the 2050 net zero goals, how it has spurred a shift in consumer preferences towards companies committed to reaching them. Additionally, we discuss the pivotal role decarbonisation plays in the fabric of both companies and the innovative strategies employed to bolster the resilience and sustainability of their operations.

Guests:

Calvin Winch | Senior Project Manager – Britvic

Andy McKnight | Principal Project Manager – Heineken

Silent Designers Episode 5 - Mark Price, Biohaviour

What role can design play in our journey to Net Zero? 

In this fifth episode of Silent Designers, we explore the theme of net zero and sustainable technologies with guest, Mark Price. 

A professor of Aeronautics at Queen's University Belfast, Mark Price is also the co-founder of Biohaviour, a research initiative exploring bio-inspired rules for innovative engineering design. 

Biohavior aims to bring bio-inspired concepts and ideas into the realm of engineering design and cloud-based manufacturing within a single fully integrated environment. 

“I’ve found that the decisions that design supports are absolutely critical, not just for products, but for businesses and organisations as a whole and beyond.” 

Mark Price, Professor of Aeronautics at Queen's University Belfast  and co-founder of Biohaviour

On making things better and making things differently

Join us as Mark explains how the challenge of Net Zero has driven a shift in his thinking beyond his background as a systems engineer in the aircraft industry to his discovery that design thinking can help us challenge requirements, lessen constraints, and open up new paths to innovation.

“When you innovate as an academic your inclination is to peel everything back, layer by layer and put foundational principles in place as you learn about the different frameworks. But it’s only then, as you begin to learn about a system, that you can open up different avenues of thought and start to explore new opportunities.”

Mark Price, Professor of Aeronautics at Queen's University Belfast and co-founder of Biohaviour

Listen as Mark shares:

• The understanding of foundational principles that can open up new avenues of thought 
• The potential of bio-inspired systems to create new products, processes, and systems 
• How design thinking can help us reach Net Zero

And discover how the incorporation of design thinking in one’s own practice demands a high level of self-reflection and questioning.

Click here to read the transcript.

Click here to watch the episode on YouTube.

Click here for the rest of the Silent Designers series.

Silent Designers Episode 4 - Tom Inns, Cofink

What role does design play in our healthcare systems?  

In this fourth episode of Silent Designers, our guest Tom Inns explores the theme of healthy living and technologies. Tom is the director of the consultancy, Cofink, a visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde, and a coach on the Innovate UK Design for Growth programme. 

Join us as Tom explains his fascination with the role design can play in helping the silent designers within healthcare teams understand complex challenges, undertake the necessary phases of discovery, and innovate to deliver change.  

“Each time I run a project I learn as much as the team about nudging and evolving our processes, tools, and methodologies. How we can push the boundaries and make collaborations happen.” 

Tom Inns, Director of Cofink 

Tom shares: 

• The powerful impact of design thinking approaches and ethnography in healthcare settings 
• How mapping out a visual ecosystem of healthcare pathways creates a fantastic focus point for collaborations 
• The real-life impact of healthcare innovation—in trumpet form 

Want to learn how to apply design thinking to your own work? 

In the second half of this episode, Tom also shares three simple yet fascinating new ways of looking at the world and how you can introduce design thinking into your own practice at work.  

“If you take these three little pieces of mental gymnastics on board, you'll be motoring when it comes to design and systems thinking.”  

Tom Inns, Director of Cofink

Episode transcript: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/KTN-Silent-Designers-Tom-Inns-Episode-4-Transcription.pdf

Read more: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/news/silent-designers-podcast-series/ 

Silent Designers episode 3 - Marie Williams, Dream Networks

What happens when you bring children as young as seven together with businesses, senior designers, and architects and ask them to design a space to play? 

The third episode of Silent Designers explores the theme of Knowledge Transfer and Design with guest Marie Williams — Chartered Engineer, Design Lecturer, TEDx speaker, and Founder of Social Enterprise, Dream Networks. 

Join us as playful engineer, Marie Williams, explains what took her from a career in innovation across aerospace, nuclear fusion, and software engineering to launch a social enterprise, Dream Networks and her drive to address the need for more equitable access to play areas in socially deprived areas. 

Marie explains: 

·       The impact of design on social or environmental value 

·       How children approach co-design and design thinking opportunities 

·       The importance of context and equity in effective knowledge transfer 

“I think about one in eight children in the UK has no access to a garden and relies on public play areas. However, the data reveals that many of these children live in deprived areas that don’t have play spaces. So that's when design is the catalyst for change and a response to more than an economic need. It can be our response to growing social and environmental needs and problem sets.” 

Marie Williams is a playful chartered engineer, design lecturer, TedX speaker, and CEO of Dream Networks.  She founded Dream Networks in 2016, and has collaborated with businesses, schools, and communities to co-design and build engaging play spaces in economically deprived communities worldwide. To date, Dream Networks has adopted sustainable design practices to create inclusive play spaces for over 60,000 children in the UK and Africa.  

Click here to read the transcript.

Silent Designers Episode 2 - Cat Drew, Design Council

The second episode of Silent Designers explores the theme of Net Zero and Sustainable Technologies with guest Cat Drew, Chief Design Officer at the Design Council. Cat shares how, in her role, she’s bringing together the very best knowledge, practice, and frameworks about how to Design for Planet and sharing that knowledge with designers, innovators, commissioners, and policymakers. 

“The Design Council’s vision is for a regenerative world for all. The way we’re way going to get there is for people in the design sector—all 1.79 million of us—to Design for Planet and help us make the shift from a consumer to a regenerative society.” 

Join us as Cat explains: 

• The vital role people-centred design plays in the adoption of sustainable technologies, 
• The importance of ‘new-to-me’ innovation on the path to Net Zero 
• How she made the transition from policymaker to ‘Silent Designer’ 

An expert in Systemic Design, Cat started her career as a policymaker working across government and writing strategies for Number 10, the Home Office, and the Cabinet Office. Combining her 10 years of experience in Government with an MA in graphic design, she co-founded the UK Government’s Policy Lab. Cat has also held leadership positions in Uscreates and FutureGov, where she led programmes to make public services more user-centred and systemic in addressing local homelessness challenges. 

Click here to download the episode transcript.

Battery Caffè Podcast Episode 10: Critical Minerals

This podcast episode focuses on critical minerals in the battery supply chain and is hosted by Nikoleta Piperidou, Cross-Sector Battery Systems Innovation Network Lead at Innovate UK KTN and Dr Sheena Hindocha, Knowledge Transfer Manager for Materials Chemistry at Innovate UK KTN with special guest Olimpia Pilch, International Partnerships and Business Manager at Critical Minerals Association United Kingdom (CMA UK).

Nikoleta and Sheena talk about the economic and technological importance of critical minerals and why we should collaborate with global industry partners to build a more resilient energy supply that accelerates the growth of the UK’s domestic capabilities.

Throughout this conversation, the supply and demand of critical minerals for batteries as we transition to net zero in the UK is discussed at length. The 2035 UK Battery Recycling Industry Vision highlights that there is a major opportunity to secure the supply of critical batteries for minerals through recycling. Battery development can adopt a circular economy approach whereby battery materials are separated, recycled, then re-manufactured into new batteries all within the UK which would allow for significantly more of a battery’s economic value to be kept within the UK’s economy while also reducing the UK’s dependency on other countries for critical minerals.

Read the podcast transcript here.

Silent Designers Episode 1 - Anna Wilson, 52 North

Redefining Design Boundaries: Join us for the inaugural episode of 'Silent Designers' as Anna Wilson takes us on a captivating journey into the world of design. With a fresh and innovative approach, Anna showcases the true essence of design in its purest form, while also sharing her unexpected path into process design. Reflecting on her experiences, Anna reveals, "This doesn't work so well, let's come back to the drawing board and try to improve that. My main learning is that it's an iterative process and actually, it is never finished." Trained as a vet and now Head of Operations at 52North, a Cambridge-based Health Tech start-up, Anna is transforming triage for neutropenic sepsis, a critical complication of cancer chemotherapy. Additionally, as the founder of Tortoise, a digital health solution, she aims to support people in their recovery journey after injury. Discover the limitless possibilities of design as Anna shares her unique insights and challenges faced along the way. Tune in to be inspired by her multifaceted use of design. As part of our commitment to empowering innovators, we invite you to join the Design In Innovation Network (DIIN), a vibrant community of cross-sector innovators who are passionate about driving innovation outcomes. Our online platform serves as a collaborative hub, connecting you with sector experts and fostering meaningful engagements. Discover the vast potential of design and uncover new pathways to embed it into your own innovation journey. Join the community: https://designinnovationnetwork.ktn-uk.org/ Meet our hosts for the "Silent Designers" series Steve Welch Steve is half-engineer, half-scientist … all innovation! After a lengthy career in systems engineering applied to Spacecraft projects, he is now director of Innovate UK KTN’s activities in Knowledge Transfer, Place and Design. Steve has long appreciated the overlap between engineering and design and is always delighted by fresh ideas—especially the fresh ideas that pay-off: and that’s where this series comes from. Katherine Wildman Katherine is a B2B copywriter working with multinational businesses on projects that can involve anything from video scripts and tone of voice development to marketing campaigns and case studies. Katherine is interested where innovative ideas come from. What was the actual problem our guests identified and how they went about solving the challenge they faced?

Battery Caffè Podcast Episode 9: Anodes

Hosted by Debra Jones and Juan Maria Gonzalez Carballo, Chemistry Knowledge Transfer Managers at Innovate UK KTN, with special guest Alex Groombridge, Chief Technology Officer & Cofounder at Echion Technologies.

This episode focuses on different chemistries for anodes and the challenges of scaling up manufacturing. Juan and Debra talk about the UK's battery anode and cathode capabilities, the desired properties of these materials and the production as well as commercialisation of this emerging technology to supply anode grade niobium oxides.

Read the podcast transcript here.

Battery Caffè Podcast Episode 8: The UK battery investment landscape

This podcast episode focuses on the funding landscape and specifically discusses opportunities and challenges within the UK battery ecosystem. We also discuss the insights and findings from the Electric Vehicle Battery Tech in the UK 2022 report that Faraday Battery Challenge has recently partnered with DealRoom to deliver with contributions from Innovate UK KTN. This report outlines how the industry is going to scale up with more investment in scaling innovative battery technology companies.

This podcast is hosted by Nikoleta Piperidou, Cross-Sector Battery Systems Innovation Network Lead at Innovate UK KTN, and Jordan Fletcher, Knowledge Transfer Manager for Net Zero Investor Communities at Innovate UK KTN, and features special guests Jim Totty, Managing Partner at Virdis Capital and Ian Whiting, Commercial Director at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC).

Read the podcast transcript here.