Institutions of Innovation: National Physical Laboratory
'Institutions of Innovation' is a series of monthly interviews with the institutions driving the UK’s innovation policy.
Each contribution gradually pieces together the UK's innovation landscape; setting out the key actors, what they do, where they sit and how industry can engage, including through techUK.
This month's insight focuses on the National Physical Laboratory.
Further information on NPL's work can be found on their website here.
The National Physical Laboratory's responses have been provided by Sundeep Bhandari, Chief Digital Officer and Head of Digital Innovation.
I see the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), as the UK's National Metrology Institute, provides the measurement capability that underpins the UK's prosperity and quality of life. What does this mean in practice?
Excellent science and engineering is at the heart of NPL's activities, we drive improved confidence in data, supporting industry and improving quality of life, both in the UK and internationally. As the UK’s National Metrology Institute (NMI), we maintain a wide portfolio of internationally-visible research programmes helping to develop and maintain national primary measurement standards and disseminate traceability to industry. Our work helps to advance measurement science, support development of new technologies, enable innovation and deliver solutions to national challenges, as well as launching new digital standards.
Research integrity is essential for trust in NPL, meaning you can be assured of the impartiality, probity, rigorous accuracy and reproducibility of our research.
What kind of relationship does NPL have with its closest institutional neighbours? (In particular, DSIT, UKRI and Catapults).
NPL is a public corporation owned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) who are our one and only shareholder, so we have a very close relationship not only with our sponsorship team, but across directorates, teams and indeed numerous other government departments. Both UKRI and the Catapults are also part of the DSIT family so, as you might imagine, we have very close and strong working relationships across technologies, functions and at various levels with both. The types of relationship also vary, from collaborating on shaping and delivering programmes to address national challenges through to real-world applications, for example our growing work in digital engineering with the NCC (part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult) to name just one.
As the breadth and depth of expertise and work at NPL is so vast and aligned to the UK’s priority critical and emerging technologies and sectors, we’re also often asked to support government colleagues (not just DSIT) where our scientists, engineers and strategists can help in decision making, policy development, research and analysis and delivery. A great example of this would be the UK Telecoms Lab (UKTL), where various NPL colleagues from all parts of our organisation supported government on all four of these aspects to a point where we’re now managing and operating the new laboratory.
What are the key departments that NPL works most closely with?
When I first joined NPL, about eight years ago our main interactions were with our then owning department, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), who would signpost us to others and vice versa. Historically our work has mainly been with departments and agencies looking after defence, health, environment and energy, but these days and with the move to DSIT we’re engaged across many more departments (Eg DfT, FCDO and the Cabinet Office). We also work with regulators and other Public Sector Research Establishments and Arm’s-Length Bodies regularly.
More broadly, how does NPL work with external stakeholders, including universities and other organisations across the UK, to drive innovation?
The work we do across stakeholders all stems from our foundational research in developing and maintaining the primary reference standards for the UK. Taking that core part of our remit and applying it to applications and national challenges that have global impact is what drives us – creating impact from science. The way we engage with all types of stakeholders can vary and these days we stretch across the technology readiness levels (TRL) whereas in the past a lot of our effort was in the TRL 4-6 area, typically known as the ‘valley of death’. Our world-leading measurement solutions are critical to business and government, accelerating research and innovation, improving quality of life and enabling trade. Around 4,500 businesses use NPL per year, they employ about one million people with a turnover of £188 billion, spending £10.2 billion on measurement each year. A further 74,000 organisations are indirectly supported through the provision of calibration services delivered by the 190 UKAS accredited labs taking traceability directly from NPL and the other National Measurement System (NMS) labs. These figures indicate the scale of the total impact measurement has on the UK economy. We also work with academia extensively, be it through collaborative research or more commercial type of engagements.
NPL is an important part of the UK research base and delivers world-class measurement expertise and facilities to help universities and other research organisations to address national and global challenges. Projects with organisations such as the European Space Agency and NASA, have delivered mission critical equipment designed to withstand the challenging space environment, and created new ways to map tumours with Cancer Research UK. NPL has strong links with academia through its Strategic Partnership with the University of Strathclyde and the University of Surrey and other key university partners within the UK and globally. This collaboration has led to a successful knowledge exchange programme through joint staff appointments, fellowships and post-doctoral research projects. We also have the Postgraduate Institute for Measurement Science (PGI), which is helping to support academia in creating the next generation of world-class measurement scientists who are ready to tackle real life industrial challenges.
How can techUK’s 1100+ industry members best engage with NPL?
Just get in touch! Drop us a message on our website via the contact us form or give us a call. We’ll quite quickly know if we can help, and it’s not uncommon that if we can’t help we’ll often know who can.
Can you name any examples of how NPL has worked with techUK in the past? If so, what have you enjoyed, valued, or learned during the process?
Personally, I’ve been to several techUK events – the main things that impressed me were the large, diverse set of members and expertise, and, how relevant the discussions are to today’s societal as well as industrial challenges. As an organisation we’ve attended numerous techUK events and also spoken at several on various topics. This is especially productive as they bring all parts of the ecosystem for specific topics/applications/technologies, which is important to us as an organisation.
What is NPL's long-term vision for the UK’s innovation landscape? Are there any areas in which working with industry will be particularly crucial?
Almost everything we do needs us to be working with industry or developing the capabilities, technologies and infrastructure needed downstream that enables them to innovate, invest, make, manufacture, trade and travel with confidence.
A big part of our current focus is on the role measurement and the innovation it enables in the critical and emerging technologies outlined in the UK’s Science and technology framework: AI, Quantum, Future Telecommunications, Semiconductors and Engineering Biology, as well as other nationally important high value sectors and applications such as climate change, energy, automotive and so on. We’re looking at these not only in isolation but also in combination, where are the overlaps for example between AI, Semiconductors and Telecoms, or, what do we need to be thinking about and developing for future telecoms networks that are driven by data at the speed of AI and potentially powered by quantum computers. I love being able to go to work and have these kinds of conversations several times a day!
Of personal interest to me are how we, NPL, are going to be operating in an ever increasingly digital world. What do we need to be doing now so that the measurement infrastructure for AI, digital twins, quantum computing and digital infrastructure more broadly is in place when it’s needed, and, vice versa how can we use the same technologies to improve our own ways of working and delivering / dissemination measurement to the point of need, in digital ways, but with the same robustness, traceability and integrity as we get from physical measurement infrastructure technologies.
Finally, what is NPL's main priority over the next 12 months?
Ramp up our work with our government, industry and international counterparts to develop the capabilities and measurement standards, tools and infrastructure especially in areas such as AI, which is evolving at a phenomenal pace and presents such opportunity. Ensuring the underpinning technical measurement standards and international pre-normative research to develop them are in progress – these are key enablers, fundamental to standardisation process’ and post deployment assessment, evaluation, validation, verification and testing (VV&T). Measurement is critical to providing confidence in this and many other technologies. We’re also serious about accelerating our own ‘digital journey’ so watch this space for new ways of interacting with us, new ways of accessing our measurement standards and new ways of receiving our products and services.
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Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.