Celebrating our tech successes

I am really pleased the EK News is allowing me a weekly column whilst the Westminster election campaign is underway.

The deal is that I will not be party political in my ramblings. Of course I respect that and thought one subject up for debate in our Parliament this week would be of interest.

Scotland has long excelled in science and research, and we enjoy a global reputation for our research and innovation.

A science nation, our history in invention and innovation is well quoted – James Watt and the steam engine, John Logie Baird for television and Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone.

James Clerk Maxwell, Mary Fairfax Somerville and John Napier in physics and mathematics; James Hutton and Maria Matilda Gordon for geology.

Of course in our times there is pioneer Ian Wilmut’s cloning of Dolly the sheep and in computer and software science the cult classic game Grand theft Auto, the brainchild of David Jones and Mike Daily.

Scotland can point to significant successes in working across international boundaries with research centres that are attracted to Scotland by the quality of our research base.

Researchers from Scottish universities were among scientists from 17 countries involved in the research and discovery of gravitational waves.

Glasgow is the UK’s leading university for gravitational research. The £100 million Innovative Medicines Initiative European Lead Factory Programme was won by BioCity Scotland, the University of Dundee and the Scottish Universities

Life Science Alliance. This will speed up the development of new drugs.

Our Universities generally are renowned worldwide, with four of our universities in the World Top 200 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings – more per head of population than any other country except Switzerland.

Scottish Universities have so far secured around an 11 per cent share of the UK’s share of funding from the EU Horizon 2020 programme. We have a lot to be proud of.

We have a lot to be proud of in East Kilbride too. Our Technology Park hosts many innovative companies that I have spoken much of in previous columns –like TUV SUD and Mage Control Systems.

You may remember local company E-Cebs, now part of global company Visa Inc, and there’s the Energy Technology Centre - driving forward innovation in the low carbon energy sector.

There are many more,

There’s plenty to be proud of in Scotland and in EK...

right across the East

Kilbride business parks.

One of the jewels in our East Kilbride crown, which I have visited many times and been fascinated by the work they do, is SUERC – Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre.

SUERC is operated by a consortium of Scottish Universities with the mission is to perform, stimulate and support high quality research covering the earth, environmental and biomedical sciences.

I am fascinated by their work in‘radiocarbon dating’, a service they provide to national and international museums, universities and archaeology units. I remember once being shown‘a bit of Mars’, and a bit of poor old Richard III, King of England, whose skeleton was found beneath a Leicester car park.

So let’s celebrate Scotland as a Science Nation with an international reputation, and do all that we can to encourage our young women and men to carry on that marvellous tradition.