Durham University - Creating the £uture

Dec 11 2006 By The Journal

With a staff of 3,000 and with students in residence for more than half the year - some 12,000 in Durham City and more than 2,000 in Stockton - Durham University has a major part to play in shaping the region's future.

Durham's success is rooted in the world-class quality of its academic research.

This is the key factor that attracts and retains excellent staff, underpins the much-in-demand teaching programmes and increasingly feeds out benefits to the wider community in terms of engagement with business, industry and cultural life.

Founded in 1832 and celebrating its 175th anniversary next year, Durham is a leading university and has established a considerable track record.

Expertise covers a broad range of academic disciplines, from photonics, e-science and communications technologies to criminal law and public health; from international relations and global economics to bio-sciences and renewable energy.

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Supporting the knowledge economy

The strength and breadth of Durham's research underpins the university's contribution to the region's knowledge economy and UK business and industry.

Advances in the fight against disease and poverty, the protection of the environment, the introduction of new materials and technologies, our understanding of atoms and the universe - all of these, and more, depend on the increase and sharing of knowledge.

Indeed, many companies use intellectual property developed at Durham in areas such as electronic microsystems, cell biology and plasma chemistry.

The university recently shared a national award with one of its own students and a County Durham company for a project that showed how, by working together, the business doubled its turnover and increased its workforce by 50%.

This is the knowledge economy working at its best.

Everyone's a winner: the company, the PhD student - who gained valuable practical experience in the workplace and a job - and the university, which can further demonstrate its role as an engine of regeneration in the region.

It's a role Durham takes very seriously.

Durham is a research-intensive institution of international standing with an acknowledged reputation for consistently achieving high standards of excellence in teaching and top-class results.

It is a member of the N8 Research Partnership of universities working to apply research excellence to industrial and social needs and help remove the £30bn output gap between the North and other English regions by 2025.

Durham Business School, which is not only one of Europe's premier business schools, but a leading player in the region, has partnerships with several companies, organisations and institutions, to share its business expertise and knowledge.

The university has a current portfolio of more than 60 patents, approximately 50% of which have been licensed.

It has `spun-out' 17 companies since 2000 and its staff make many invention disclosures annually - more evidence of the commercial potential generated by our academic research.

Other projects link up with the service sectors in the region to bring social, cultural and economic benefits.

The university's Health Strategy Board works with the region's health organisations and care-providers to encourage research, teaching and other activities to support the improvement of the health and well-being of people in the North-East.

The board is part of the pioneering Wolfson Research Institute, the £10m purpose-built research facility at Durham's Queen's Campus in Stockton.

And it doesn't stop there.

Durham continues to invest in its research infrastructure and recently launched its pioneering Institute of Advanced Study (IAS).

This multidisciplinary institute fosters the development of new knowledge at the forefront of various disciplines, attracting the world's greatest thinkers to significantly raise the university's international research standing, and to identify, nurture and harness the world-class potential of Durham's researchers.

Durham's academic strengths and the flow of its knowledge and people into the economy both regionally and nationally is a key plank of the region's future strategy.

Information

* Durham University: www.durham.ac.uk

* Research Quality: www.durham.ac.uk/research

Key Contacts:

* REDSS - (Research and Economic Development Support Service) www.durham.ac.uk/redss

* Jonathan Lee, Business Relations Manager Tel: (0191) 334-4649 or jonathan.lee@durham.ac.uk

* Durham Business School www.durham.ac.uk/dbs

* Professor David Barr, Director of Business Development Tel: (0191) 334-5410 or david.barr@durham.ac.uk