Our Research Impact

Our Research Impact

“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”

In innovation and research, one quote sticks out … “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”. And so, it is one little seed that you plant in the ground, that eventually becomes the world-leading company, or the great scientific breakthrough. It was the seed of the BBC Micro that created ARM, and the seed of DOS that created Microsoft. Google, Facebook, and many other world-leading companies, have all started from little seeds.

Increasingly, too, these seeds are based on IP (Intellectual Property), and one of the best ways to generate IP is with research investment. And, with the right seeds, you will see your tree grow and become a mighty oak. Many seeds, though, will never come to anything, but, if you pick the right ones, and give them the nurishment, and have people to feed them, they will grow in a way that you could never imagine.

REF 2021

And so, after a long process, the REF (Research Excellence Framework) 2021 results have been released. For Computer Science and Informatics, my university and School of Computing submitted 39.4 FTE staff (around three-quarters of the academic staff who were eligible). This has grown around four times since the last REF submission — and we made the submission as inclusive as possible. The scoring for overall, outputs, impact and environment were:

What’s great to see is that three-quarters of the overall outputs submitted were 3*(international-class) or 4* (world-class). In case you don’t know the ranking, here it is:

• 4*. Quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
• 3* Quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour but which falls short of the highest standards of excellence.
• 2*. Quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
• 1*. Quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour
• Unclassified. Quality that falls below the standard of nationally recognised work or does not meet the published definition of research for the purposes of this assessment.

Impact

In Scotland, in terms of research power in Computer Science and Informatics (and which is GPA [grade point average] * FTE size of submission), we come in 3rd after the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, and moving fast.

But, there’s one stand-out here … our research impact. A score of 100%. Why? Because we have focused on converting high-impact research into things that have make a real difference in our lives. Overall, only seven universities in the UK scored 100% for their impact in Computer Science and Informatics:

1   The University of Birmingham   100%       
1   University of Edinburgh   100%       
1   Edinburgh Napier University   100%       
1   University of Glasgow   100%       
1   Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine   100%       1   Queen Mary University of London   100%       
1   University of Southampton   100%       
8   University of Bristol   90%       
9   University of Cambridge   85.7%       
10   The University of Essex   83.3%       
11   The University of Leeds   83.3%       
11   University of Lincoln   83.3%       
11   University College London   81.3%       
14   King's College London   75%       
14   The University of Lancaster   75%       
14   University of Newcastle upon Tyne   75%       
14   The University of Reading   75%       
14   The University of Warwick   75%       
14   University of York   75%       
20   The University of Manchester   70%

I smile when I look at the impact, because, in the end, it is the impact of research that makes the long-term difference. Citation counts, grant awards and impact factors are only metrics that can show significant, but it is how the research is used is its real measure. Impacful research grows our economy, it changes people’s lives, and it can change our society for the better. And this can be on a world-leading basis.

For Scotland, and the UK, to compete on an international level, we need to increasingly turn our research excellence into things that allow us to compete with others around the world. And, every country in the world has this challenge, and where you might produce lots of high quality research papers and patents; it is the conversion of these into real impact that will truly judge the success of this investment. And, it’s a long-term game, and where an investment now in a PhD studentship might not see any real impact for over seven to ten years. So, what you see as a 100% score now, have been a decade of hard work and inspiration all of the hands involved. And, if you don’t plant the seeds, the tree will never grow.

Basically, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”.

Research case studies

For the School of Computing, here, we submitted four research case studies. One related to amazing work on Disney Pixar movies (led by Professor Kenny Mitchell), a second related to the amazing work that Professor David Benyon, RIP, led, and the last two related to our Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics research. For me, David Benyon will leave a lasting legacy, and I am so proud of this achievement for his memory. He helped me so much in my career, and he fundamentally changed our research environment. In fact, he is probably one of the most inspirational people I have ever met.

For our Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics innovation, my research area submitted two case studies. The first was based on our cybersecurity and digital forensics work that led to our amazing spin-outs of Zonefox and Cyan Forensics (Cyacomb), and the other related to our information sharing research that led to Symphonic Trust. To highlight the impact, Zonefox was acquired by Fortinet, and Symphonic by Ping. And the impact is still happening with Cyacomb and which is making real waves with their products across the world.

The hands of many …

The strange thing about impact, though, it that it needs a route to take the research somewhere, and the environment with Edinburgh and in Scotland, generally, is excellent. We are lucky to have Scottish Enterprise on our doorstep, and who have helped our spin-outs so much. And, to the amazing technical and business leaders that have taken the vision, and have saw it through … Dr Jamie Graves (Zonefox), Niall Burns (Symphonic), Derek Jamieson (Symphonic), Bruce Ramsay (Cyan Forensics), Ian Stevenson (Cyan Forensics), Dr Peter McLaren (MemCrypt), Dr Owen Lo (MemCrypt), Peter Jaco (MemCrypt), and so many more.

But, that’s not the end. The work over the last decade is just the start of our increasing Cybersecurity and Cryptography impact, and where the Blockpass Identity Lab is expanding fast, and with new spin-outs evolving from our research. This includes TrueDeploy and TrustId, and which are integrating our identity, cryptography and distributed ledger work, and there’s much more to come.

Creating social architects

Prof Hill, I think, outlines innovation best in this article, where she analyses why some companies are so successful at it, and others barely seem to innovate.

One viewpoint she pushes forward is that leadership matters greatly, but that it is not the core in building an organisation that innovates on a regular basis. The argument basically follows the line that just because you have a well-funded R&D department, with a great leader, doesn’t mean you’ll have a pipeline of great innovations.

She analysed some of the best innovators and found they were dispersed across a wide range of organsation types, from those who are seen as hotbeds of innovation to less traditional ones, such as those in government departments. From our point of view, we see this, and have seen that some of the best innovators have come across are those in the public sector, such as in law enforcement and health care. They are people who can spot that the existing way is just not working and that it can be improved in some way.

The individuals she studied showed that it was less about getting people to follow the leader, and more about getting people to co-create the idea, and the leaders involved were capable of providing vision, even though they did not see that as their main role.

Another interesting viewpoint is that these leaders are basically:

Social architects

and who create groups — or communities — which were willing and able to innovate. As a technical person, I relate fully to this and believe that getting others on board with a vision is key, but the ability to execute the idea is also key. Thus having the correct partnerships and the technical skills to execute the vision is a fundamental factor in getting an innovation to succeed.

I think few people have really crystalised viewpoints of innovation as she has:

Innovation is a journey, a collaborative problem-solving process, where discoveries happen through a process of trial and error, false starts, and even mistakes. The process can be exhilarating. But as many of us know all too well, it can also be downright scary

I have highlighted the collaborative and problem-solving bit as this can often be a challenge for many companies, as their innovation must often be shared with others, either in the organisation or externally.

She then pinpoints that innovation is crafted by the hands of many, and not from a single genius, and where the leader is able to unleash talent in order to enact collective genius. For the organisation, she defined three cultural attributes to foster innovation: reactive abrasion; creative agility; and creative resolution.

Reactive abrasion is creating an environment that supports discourse and debate, and where people listen to ideas, and where breakthroughs cannot thrive where there is no diversity of thought, nor conflict. This is the type of environment that academia aims to create, where there are different viewpoints on topics, and where they are critically appraised.

In a university, the innovation environment should thrive on reactive abrasion, but often the environment becomes rather sanitized, where critical thoughts and conflict are suppressed, or where new ideas are not followed through. She thus, alongside a diversity of thought and conflict, defines a culture of listening, inquiry and advocacy.

Her second attribute is creative agility, which involves rapidly developing, experimenting, and changing. This, she defines, involves both a scientific process and an artistic process. You then act — and not plan. This goes against many business models, where the first thing you are asked for is your Gantt Chart, and your business plan, along with your five-year financial forecast. Often these documents are great works of fiction that George Orwell would be proud of.

In innovation, you often have to create small prototypes and run small-scale experiments in order to get you the results that can demonstrate the potential. We learnt early on that we often had to short-circuit the design phase for a quick proof-of-concept, and then demonstrate it. In this way, people can see what the innovation will look like, and outline, with the results, how it will improve things.

She defines that some deep thinking goes on at this phase. In some of the projects that we have been involved with we have often collaborated with organisations with large development teams, with fully defined processes for their builds, but, in the end, we’ve ended up with something which really makes an impact, as, early on, we started to build something that we could experiment with, and get early results.

Finally, she defines creative resolution, which again allows debate to thrive, and where there is no one person that dominates, and where everyone in the team has the opportunity to influence the focus. It thus focuses on alternative approaches and then appraising them as things develop. She outlines that it is important for the environment to be created where the individuals involved are open to contributing their ideas, and multiple approaches can be taken.

Getting everyone on-side

Linda defines that the leadership element is there to keep the innovation progressing, otherwise it is likely to run out of stream, and where some internal forces within a group will often push against the developments. A resistance of change is often common in some organisations, especially in the public sector, and can try to slow down or block new innovations (often it is the change of roles that a new innovation will bring that will suppress change — “wouldn’t it replace someone’s job?” is a common statement).

She defines that the three things that leadership should thus focus on are: common purpose; shared values; and mutual rules of engagement. With a common purpose, everyone in the team knows what the end goal looks like, and are ready to cope with problems, conflict and tension that happens along the way. For the team, the pain of the innovation is worth it in the end, in that they achieve the end goal. Few, only the way, will actually know what the end goal looks like, but everyone knows what a good endpoint will be.

For shared values, the team must share a vision and have four key values of: bold ambition; collaboration; learning; and responsibility. A team should then be able to articulate what these are, and what they stand for when they meet someone for the first time. They should also be able to give an elevator pitch and say something like … “We want to share information around the risks to patients, but preserve their rights to privacy”. Each person in the team should share this and know exactly what the aims of the vision are. Each part of the innovation then just takes them along part of the route.

Finally, she defines mutual rules of engagement, which defines who the team will work together with, and where there leader makes sure that everyone in the team is comfortable with their role, and where they:

contribute ideas, they cultivate mutual trust, respect and influence (words easier to say than practice)

Linda defines that leaders pay great attention to how people think and she believes that they get people to question everything. She defines that they should stimulate a culture that bases things on data and fact and be holistic in their approaches. She thus defines that the team should have a focus on:

“who we are”

“why we are together”

And, next …

Cyacomb (Cyan Forensics) continue their climb to the top in the field. And, watch this space, and come and collaborate with us on making a real difference. I leave you with Steve …