A research institute with ambitious plans to cultivate groundbreaking industry-shaping ideas opened in Durham this week.
The Durham Institute of Research, Development and Invention (DIRDI) has been set up by advanced manufacturer Coltraco Ultrasonics and Durham University at NETPark's Orbit building and is co-located with the Centre for Underwater Acoustic Analysis.
Industry and academic masterminds behind the project have set ambitions high saying they want to foster mathematical and physical science discoveries in the spirit of revolutionary thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton and the research and development (R&D) of greats such as Thomas Edison.
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DIRDI aims to bring together academics and industry professionals across disciplines, primarily physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. Core research specialities include acoustics, electromagnetism, and information engineering.
Daniel Dobrowolski, head of DIRDI, said: “Unlike typical research institutes, DIRDI is primarily commercially-funded. Through the rapid commercialisation of promising R&D lines, the freedom to explore fundamental science is sustained.
“The rapid technological progress of the last century continues apace, but the truly transformative technological breakthroughs will be ones that cannot be reasonably conceived of today.
“We are empowering our members, be they academics or students to explore the science that interests them, because we believe whole-heartedly that the best minds at Durham University today are as capable of achieving great feats of discovery as the great men and women of the past.”
Members of the institute - which is primarily commercially funded - will be encouraged to pursue ideas free from the responsibilities of grant seeking and publication impact.
It has been the long-held ambition of Coltraco's CEO, Carl Hunter, who said: “We’re looking for the gold dust in people driven by their ambition for and love of discovery and we want to inspire the extraordinary.
“Our twin objectives are to identify the next Newton whomever he or she may be and to create a unique environment for our brightest undergraduate scientists to transition within our Institute to postgraduate levels and provide our country with a “pipeline” of future British Nobel Prize winners for science.
“If we are successful, the societal impact will mean the engendering of hope for all those who have not had the opportunities, the support or pathways to invent and bring forward their ideas having been stymied by their lack of access to university research.
“I believe that coupling theoretical research, into the fundamental physical laws of our universe, for humankind, with applied research, to advance the development and manufacture of high-exporting UK science and technology, is a new model of University-Industry collaboration to advance UK research and development, invention and innovation.
“We are all very grateful for Durham University’s support; this is the public and private sectors combining to create national endeavour which I believe will help spur our economic recovery and future prosperity.”
Professor Paula Chadwick, from the Department of Physics at Durham University and a member of the DIRDI advisory board, said: “Colleagues and I in the Physics Department have worked very successfully with Coltraco for nearly 10 years, and countless students have benefitted from projects with them.
“This exciting new institute will, I hope, become a hub for the exchange of both applied and blue-skies scientific ideas. I look forward very much to working with the team to realise DIRDI's ambitions.”
