Year of light launch

The United nations has declared 2015 as the International year of light and 80 nations are celebrating light technology, the first official event was the Opening Ceremony held at UNESCO HQ in Paris over 19-20 January 2015. This week Scotland launched its programme with exhibits and talks for schools and the public in the grand surrounds of the Royal Society of Edinburgh which allowed for many exhibits.

The Public event opened with a rendition trumpet recital based on the the Big Bang followed by a word from the sponsors, Professor Paul Hagan of the SFC.

The exhibits ranged from simple experiments, with kits supplied for use at home, to Laser harps with bi-directional "strings".  The harp could be played a note at a time but some fine tuning was still required to play in both directions simultaneously.

While many of the exhibits showed properties of light in demonstrations, others show cased ideas which were either commercial or useful in other research such as biology or medicine.  The use of fluorescence microscopy allows biologists to study microbes and virus's to see how they move, grow and stick to surfaces to allow better sanitisation. While fibre optic microscopy techniques are being developed by researchers at Proteus to enable less invasive exploration of lungs and blood.

There are many laser development companies in Scotland and they were represented by M Squared Lasers who showed off one of their tunable lasers which could be used to discriminate between various white powders.  In a similar vein researchers at St Andrews University have developed a technique of using polymers in fibre optics to act as a "sniffer dog" for explosives and possibly drugs.

The Fraunhoffer stand represented the Centre for Applied Photonics based at Strathcldye University which carriers out research and development which benefits industry and acts as a conduit between the university research department and industry.  The Fraunhofer model was developed in Germany and the company now has centres across the world which allow links with local industry and other centres.

LIGHTPATH was also on display, developed by PhotoSynergy it uses fibre optics to produce a flexible and lightweight rope of light. It has been developed for subsea applications allowing long and flexible lighting for divers working from rigs. It can also be used for emergency lighting and even laid down to form a light path by emergency service crews.

A novel idea was using modulated lighting to transmit data as demonstrated by researchers from the Li-Fi Research and Development Centre. They streamed a video using a LED light as the transmitter so in future we may now longer need wifi boxes and boosters, as lighting will double as the internet carrier.

There were many other excellent examples of the strength of light technology in Scotland and hope for the future for the sector where I carried out research. Indeed I met some old friends who are now leaders in their field and regaled young researchers about the size of lasers in my days and the messy use of liquid dyes which have now been replaced by tiny solid state crystals and reduced to the size of a shoebox.

The closing event will take place on 2nd December 2015 and will be hosted by Heriot-Watt which has a rich history in laser development and light technology throughout the School of Engineering and physical sciences.

Half Term

The Parliament is now in recess for 2 weeks due to the half term holidays that take place at different times across Scotland. With a general election less than 4 months away, many MSPs (and their staff) will be helping in the campaign with a view to the Scottish elections next year.  While they are in campaign mode the Scottish parties will also be looking to develop policy for the manifestos, so a ripe time to influence the future political direction.

Creative Industries

Last week it was the turn of the The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop to give evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee to the review of the Economic Impact of the Creative Industries.

Economic Impact of the Creative Industries

Economic Impact of the Creative Industries

Economic Impact of the Creative Industries

Economic Impact of the Creative Industries

She was accompanied by John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy, who had announced an extra £3 M for the screen sector the day before.  During the evidence, Hyslop said the timing of this announcement was coincidence.

Much of the session was spent defending the role of Creative Scotland using the example of World War Z and Outlander. As I have previously pointed out in these blogs, Outlander did contribute to the economy as it was produced here whereas other films such as Z just used Scotland as a back drop and contributed very little, except disruption.   The Minsters went on to point out the tension between the artistic remit of Creative Scotland and the business development of Scottish Enterprise but stated that Creative Scotland is the lead body on the creative sector. 

Studio

Hyslop said there was progress towards the private development of a film and TV studio in Scotland through a government loan and she hoped that would be delivered in the near future and maybe optimistically claiming it would be delivered by the present government. The studio has been a long running saga with witnesses saying that it was first discussed in 1940 and the lack of these facilitates had led to a decline of the screen sector in Scotland.

Video Gaming

Swinney stated that Scottish Enterprise was able to deliver diversity in its support for companies and sectors and it did not just support large firms.  He went onto to say that games producers were just as likely to be supported as any company with growth potential and were able to access funds and expertise. They also promised to consider the evidence that the Games industry is caught between the 2 stools.

Life Sciences

Last week the life sciences industry was celebrated at the annual awards ceremony organised by Scottish Enterprise.  There were 800 guests at the event which recognises the achievements in a sector worth £3 billion.

Lobbying Bill

Scottish Committee calls for register of “significant” lobbying activity which would include consultants and those employed to undertake public affairs.  

For those interested further analysis is provided by @PubAffairs.

Fracking or waves - Forty love

Fracking

The Scottish Government has announced a moratorium on fracking to further consider the issues.  Consent for fracking will be devolved to the Scottish Parliament after the general election but in the meantime the Government can refuse planning consent. The government plans to seek advice and consider the issues and will:

• Undertake a full public consultation on unconventional oil and gas extraction
• Commission a full public health impact assessment
• Conduct further wve ork into strengthen planning guidance
• Look at further tightening of environmental regulation.

The announcement was welcomed by environmental groups but INEOS, the owners of the Grangemouth oil refinery stated they would engage with the reviews.  One independent review, carried out by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, stated that fracking was no worse than mining - provided that strong regulations were in place. While the public consultation is likely to produce more heat than light.

Forty-love

The most interesting aspect of First Minister questions was a twitter exchange between the three leaders about watching Andy Murray's semi-final rather than preparing questions and during the questions Murray received applause as the Conservative leader, Davidson, announced he had won. She then went onto to lament the decline in STEM subjects in colleges though Sturgeon stated that there was an increase in the number of students obtaining recognised qualifications.

Wave energy

In general questions it was announced that a wave energy Scotland, WES factsheet was available but that the funding model has still to be decided by HIE.  There was also concern expressed about the Oyster project and in particular the issue of funding from the Carbon Trust,  the Minister promised to look into it and help if possible.

Science Education 

Late last year the learned society's report on Science Education was launched at the Science in Parliament event but only recently received publicity due to member's motion debate. Last week the issue was debated with the Education committee. However, the First Minister, denied that Science education was under-funded quoting OECD figures on education spending and pointing out the low sample group in the learned society's report.

Creative industries review

Creative Scotland and Scottish Enterprise gave evidence on their roles in supporting the creative industries and apologised for their handling of the sector. Creative Scotland said that its structure was initially not set-up in  a way to deal with the film and TV industries due to an emphasis on art.  However, they did point out that Outlander was a success and later in the week it was revealed this had brought in £40 million to the Scottish economy and that the Games Industry had also scored some big successes.  In case you are wondering, Outlander is an American series filmed in Scotland but as yet not shown here and was covered in previous blogs.  This week it is the turn of Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, with a hand from John Swinney.  She may be helped by the announcement of an additional £3million funding for the screen sector.

Outlander an American series filmed in Scotland