15:30 – 17:30
UKRI Hubs & Programme Grants: recent progress in optical communications, photonic technologies, quantum communications and quantum computing
Workshop chairs:
- Prof Wladek Forysiak, Aston University
- Prof Andrew Lord, BT
UKRI Programme Grants and Quantum Hubs are significant investments by EPSRC which provide long term flexible funding to world-leading research groups to address major research challenges in well-established major areas of photonics and optical communications, and to harness the UK’s strengths in quantum science towards new applications in quantum technologies.
Both Programme Grants and Quantum Hubs are strategic in nature, interdisciplinary, and highly collaborative. They are considered critical mass investments which maintain the UK at the forefront of research in key enabling technologies, and seek to accelerate the translation of these technologies into the marketplace, to boost British business.
This workshop will bring together world-leading researchers from two major photonics programme grants: TRANSNET (UCL, Aston, and Cambridge University) and AIRGUIDE Photonics (Southampton University), with two of the Quantum Hubs: The EPSRC Hub in Quantum Computing and Simulation (Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial, Royal Holloway, Southampton, Surrey, Sussex, Strathclyde, UCL, Warwick), and The ESPRC Quantum Communications Hubread (York, Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Kent, NPL, Oxford, RAL Space, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Queen’s Belfast), to exchange the latest results, ideas and to explore new opportunities for cross-fertilisation and co-working across these research fields.
Speakers:
- Prof Seb Savory, University of Cambridge
- Prof Dominic O’Brien, University of Oxford
- Prof David Richardson, University of Southampton
- Sam Johnson, Innovate UK UKRI
- Prof Tim Spiller, University of York
Workshop speakers
Prof. Andrew Lord, Senior Manager of Optical Research, BT
Andrew joined BT in 1985 after a BA in Physics from Oxford University. He has helped design a wide range of optical network systems and technolAndrew Lordogies, including long haul subsea and terrestrial DWDM networks. He has been responsible for optical fibre and systems specifications. He currently leads BT’s optical core and access research including optical access, high speed transmission, Software Defined Networking and Quantum Communications. He has recently initiated BT’s quantum research, with applications in areas such as secure communications, timing and sensing. He regularly speaks at conferences, sits on several organising committees, including ECOC and was Technical Program Chair for OFC 2015 and General Chair for OFC 2017. He is an associate Editor of Journal of Lightwave Technology, is Visiting Professor at Essex University, Senior Member of the IEEE and a Chartered Engineer with the IET. He is industrial chair of NDFIS (National Dark Fibre Infrastructure). He currently is project manager for the large EU Horizon 2020 project ‘Metro-Haul’ researching optical networks for 5G.
Prof Wladek Forysiak, Professor and Deputy Director, AIPT, Aston University
Prof Wladek Forysiak, Professor and Deputy Director, AIPT, Aston University Wladek Forysiak is a Professor at Aston University and Deputy Director of AIPT. He holds a PhD in laser physics and has a research background in nonlinear photonics and high speed optical fibre communication systems. He was a co-founder of Marconi Solstis in 2000, and spent 15 years in WDM system related product development with Marconi, Ericsson, and Oclaro. He is currently EFFECT Photonics / Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Highly Integrated optical fibre Communications with research interests in wideband optical fibre communication systems, optical devices and subsystems, and the impact and mitigation of device and fibre nonlinearities.
Prof David Richardson, Deputy Director, Optoelectronics Research Centre, Southampton University
David Richardson is currently Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at Southampton University with responsibility for optical fibre and laser related research. His current research interests include hollow-core optical fibres, high power fibre lasers and optical fibre communications. He is currently Principal Investigator on the £6M EPSRC funded Airguide Photonics Programme Grant.
Prof Seb Savory, University of Cambridge
Seb J. Savory received M.Eng., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from the University of Cambridge. His interest in optical fibre communication began in 1991, when he joined STL (subsequently Nortel) in Harlow, the birthplace of the field. Having been sponsored by Nortel through his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, he re-joined the Harlow Laboratories in 2000. In 2005, he moved to UCL where he held a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship from 2005 to 2007, before being appointed as a Lecturer (2007), Reader (2012) and Professor (2015). In January 2016 he moved to the University of Cambridge where he is currently the Professor of Optical Fibre Communication. For his contributions to digital coherent transceivers for optical fibre communication he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE and the OSA in 2017. He currently serves as Vice President for Publications within the IEEE Photonics Society, having previously served as on the Board of Governors (2018-2020) and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters (2012-2017). Until June 2021 he was the Chair of the Steering Committee for the Optical Fiber Communication Conference having previously served as Program and General Chair for OFC. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IEEE, IET, Optica and HEA.