INTRODUCTION

  The Institute of Inventors represents over 1,060 enrolled British Inventors, founded 1964, a voluntary, non-profit organisation, run by Qualified Design Engineer Professional Inventors; aims include championing Inventors and Inventions that improve the quality of life now, and to serve as a Public Watchdog to address issues on Innovation—See Appendix A and P[23].

SUMMARY

  A.  British Inventors are outraged at the continued zero support for Inventors by successive British Governments whilst;

  B.  £Billions of our taxpayers' money is being bilked with the blessings of the DTI, the Office of Science & Technology, and Ministries of Transport, Environment, and Defence, through legalised scams like—

IMI, Foresight, LINK, SMART, SPUR, EPSRC, etc on worthless humbug scientific projects of no value to society/industry, under the facade of Science, Technology and Innovation.

  C.  We sincerely hope to alert the Committee to focus on our memorandum to:

(i)  probe these scams by accepting our offer of providing Conscientious Qualified Engineers to unravel and expose the scams.

(ii)  suggest remedies for terminating public funding of all scam agencies (Government, Academic and Private) operating and benefitting from the scams.

(iii)  suggest use of one per cent of money saved from scams to back British inventors with breakthrough Commercially Viable Inventions to improve the quality of life now, Inventions Evaluated and Selected by Institute of Inventor Professional Engineers.

IOI REPORT TO THE ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES BASED INNOVATION INQUIRY:

1.  Lack of Support for British Inventors and British Inventions:

  British Inventors have the time honoured reputation for breakthrough Inventions that have enhanced the World, like—

George Stevenson's Railway Trains,

Alexander Fleming's Pencillin, and

Frank Whittle's Turbo-Jet Plane.

  Yet, successive British Governments are notorious for giving Inventors the brush-off. Had Frank Whittle's Jet Plane been backed in 1930, Word War II could have been won in a few months saving the 11 million lives lost. Today there are still Frank Whittles around in Britain with Breakthrough Inventions like—

low cost Pollution-Free Vehicle IC Engines, that can reduce Global Warming Green House Gases by 40 per cent and Safe Supersonic VTOL Passenger Aircraft, yet they receive no support and continue to be ignored by Government and all Parliamentary Parties.

2.  Private Inventors invented all major breakthrough Inventions:

  History shows that all major breakthrough inventions come from Private Inventors—

Cotton Spinning Machine invented by an English Wig maker—Richard Arkwright,

Telephone invented by a Scottish Teacher—Alexander Graham Bell,

Power Loom invented by an English clergyman—Rev Edmund Cartwright,

Water Closet (WC)—invented by an English cabinet maker—Joseph Bramah,

Bagless Vacuum Cleaner—invented by a British Art Designer—James Dyson.

  The list is endless.

3.  Academia have a poor record for Innovation

Database Records over 25 years show—

Universities filed less than 1 per cent of all patented inventions.

PhD's filed less than one in 60,000 patents.

Academia is five years behind Industry in New Technology.

4.  The same records show Private Inventors filed 99 per cent of all Patented Inventions.

5.  Cashing-in by Academia/OST:

  Yet amazingly, every time there is a public outcry on "the lack of support for British Inventors", and "Valuable British Inventions going abroad", Academia and the Office of Science & Technology jump on the bandwagon and manage to procure large Government grants under the facade of Innovation, for valueless claptrap projects.

6.  Evidence of Scams

  The Committee has abundant evidence of these scams by way of access to the glossy Newsletters and Publications describing EPSRC, IMI, Foresight, LINK, OST, DTI, SMART and SPUR projects. Each report is camouflaged by bombastic jargon to give the impression that the Projects have Scientific/Technical Value, when in reality they are humbug.

  7.  Institute Engineers were able to reveal the camouflage of the scams on virtually every EPSRC, IMI, Foresight, LINK, OST, SMART & SPUR Publication available.

  8.  Most of these Government blessed legalised scams have gone on for years because existing rules favour scams and disqualify genuine viable projects of benefit to Society. Furthermore, the scams are monitored by "Privatised Contractors" whose "gift" (jurisdiction) "excludes exposing humbug" (for fear of losing their monitoring contract).

HOW THE SCAMS WORK

9.  Present Government Scam Supporting Rules (that need changing) provide that:

  Rule 1 Disqualification: If a project has immediate benefit to society—improving environment, creating jobs and wealth, it is disqualified on the grounds:

"Too near Market Place", or

"Not Pre-Competitive enough".

  Rule 2 Qualification: If on the other hand a project is abstract, has no benefit to society, does not create jobs or wealth, and is so pre-competitive that it is unlikely to be used at all, (or not before 25 years), it qualifies for £millions of tax payers money.

10.  Scam Legalising Panel

  Most of the scams are orchestrated and legalised by a Panel chosen by the Office of Science and Technology who pre-select all the Collaborating Scam Beneficiaries in advance, including the Scam Managers, ScamCo-ordinators, and Scam Monitoring Officers. The Panel also set and legalise by approval Scam Targets and Scam Milestones for each Project.

11.  Scam Managers and Co-ordinators

  Every Scheme or Scam is run by a Scam Manager and Scam Co-ordinator, who are called a Project Manager and Project Co-ordinator, recruited by EPSRC or OST, often by quiet tender from pre-selected "Privatised Contractors".

12.  PhD in Flannelling

  The Scam Managers and Scam Co-ordinators usually have a PhD in a discipline alien to the project they are managing, eg a PhD in sub atomic particles may manage a Mechanical Engineering Project, or a Bio Chemist may co-ordinate an Aerospace Project. Having a PhD in a discipline alien to the project does not matter; all PhD's have expertise in "wool pulling" which makes them suitable for preparing camouflaged documents.

13.  Typical Scam Camouflage Words

  Put this key word "Computer Modelling" in front of a project title and one can legally get away with £millions for doing nothing:

£2.5 million for "Computer Modelling of turbine Blades".

No turbine blade will be produced or even drawn.

The best computers cost under £30,000—so how come £2.5 million?

The Co-ordinator "doesn't know! Ask the Professor?" The Professor won't talk.

£22 million for a "high speed machinery" project.

A misnomer as "high speed" was supposed to mean "high performance".

The only significant beneficiary supplies "cigarette making machinery".

  The list is endless.

14.  Sham Invitation for Proposals

  There follows a sham pretence of inviting proposals to make it appear legitimate. Should any unsuspecting outsider contact a Scam Co-ordinator or Scam Manager to enquire about making a proposal, they are given numerous excuses why their proposal will not qualify. "Too near market place"—is the most common deterrent. In this way the scams are kept within the confines of the pre-selected legalised Scam Collaborators and Beneficiaries, who legally stand to make fortunes for "playing ball".

15.  Privatised Scam Monitoring

  Under the pretence of protecting the public purse, the scams are monitored by legalised Scam Monitoring Officers recruited by EPSRC or OST, usually by quiet tender from pre-selected "Privatised Contractors" whose "gift" (jurisdiction) only permit checks that scams meet "Scam Targets" and "Scam Milestones" set by the Scam legalising Panel. So obviously "declaring the project a worthless scam" would self destruct their monitoring contract.

16.  Scam Culture

  Since the advent of "Privatisation" a whole new scam culture has emerged in Britain. The cult of beneficiaries who concoct, pre-select collaborators, set targets/milestones, operate and monitor the scam projects are experts at "pulling the wool" and legally bilking the system at the tax payers' expense. It will require the efforts of Conscientious Qualified Experienced Professional Engineers (not Accountants) which the Institute can provide to assist the Committee to simplify, unravel, probe and expose the scams.

17.  Oodles of Scam Projects

  If the Committee are interested the Institute can provide, at a personal interview, evidence of dozens of scams orchestrated by the Office of Science & Technology, DTI, Ministries of Transport, Environment and Defence.

  18.  All Foresight Link Projects examined by Institute Engineers turned out to be scams.

  19.  As for SMART, no SMART project has earned amounts equal to their SMART award. One SMART award selection for 1st and 2nd stage was for a:

"tamper proof baby food container" which was not tamper proof.

  20.  The DTI cannot cite a single SMART award Project that the British Patent Office could class as Innovative ie qualify for a Patent. A typical 1st and 2nd stage SMART award was for:

Software that was "less innovative than a new mail order catalogue"—in fact it was a "touch screen mail order catalogue", not only known technology, but part of this company's 13 year old regular IT consultancy service being offered to clients.

21.  Defence Scams

  Since PFI, PPP, etc—MOD "Privatisation", MOD legalised scams involve such gigantic sums that the great train robbers are relegated to petty thieves. Typical legalised scams are:

£45 million for Camp Infrastructure, £65 million for Field Electrical Generator Sets,

£77 million for Tornado Simulator, £165 million for Attack Helicopter Simulators,

£190 million Future Wheeled Recovery Vehicle, £300 million for Future Cargo Vehicles,

£350 million for Airfield Support Vehicles, £750 million+ for Satellite Services, and

£40 billion for Eurofighter—a 1980's vintage—CTOL Aircraft—vulnerable to runway bomb damage, radar/heat seeking missiles, combat radius—400 miles (slightly more than a family car), Official Delivery—June 2002, by which time it is certain to be obsolete.

  22.  There are superior less expensive options; £20 million Manx Supersonic VTOL Stealth, three Sat cold jet engines, immune to radar and heat seeking missiles, combat radius—12,000 miles, delivery Dec 1999—twenty Manx can win a Falkland's War in three days—see Appendix M[24]. MOD decision on Manx—"no clear military application can be identified".

  23.  Is Parliamentary Complacency indicated by only 16 MPs attending the £22.2 billion RAF Budget Commons debate? Was it vested interests that shouted down a Labour backbencher (son of an RAF W W II Wellington Bomber Crewman) for daring to mention the folly of Eurofighter? One MP intervened "the Wogs have Migs, so we must have Eurofighter".

24.  Engineers to simplify, probe and expose

  On behalf of the Committee the Institute of Inventors can provide Conscientious Experienced Qualified Professional Engineers to offer simplified explanations to the Committee and assist them to probe and expose the scams using the projects' own glossy literature and reports to unravel the purposeless, "concatenation of the scams pompous pseudo scientific verbosity". If interested, we welcome a telephone call for a preliminary discussion from a Committee Member to discuss positive ways forward.

25.  Our recommendations are that the Committee should

(a)  Accept our offer of providing conscientious Qualified Technical Engineers to simplify, reveal, probe and expose the scams.

(b)  Suggest that the Government terminate funding of all agencies (Government, Academic, Industry and Privatised Contractors) operating, benefiting and monitoring the scams.

(c)  Suggest that Government use one per cent of the savings from abolishing the scams to back British Inventors (of the calibre of Frank Whittle) with Breakthrough Commercially Viable Inventions that create, jobs, wealth, improve the environment and quality of life now; Inventions evaluated and selected by Institute of Inventors Professional Engineers; Royalties earned from backed inventions used to repay grants with bonuses to help other Inventors many times over.

(d)  Suggest using the remaining Public money saved by abolishing the scams to improve the plight of Nurses, Doctors, hospital waiting lists, and benefits to all deserving cases currently being told there are insufficient funds.

  26.  The Institute of Inventors looks to a positive response from the Science & Technology Committee conducting the Engineering and Physical Sciences Based Innovation Inquiry.

15 May 1998

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