INTRODUCTION

  Lucas Aerospace is a Division of Lucas Varity plc. Lucas Aerospace is a global business with a major proportion of its manufacturing being based in the UK. Lucas Aerospace is a leading supplier of safety critical equipment to the Aerospace Industry. Having leading technology is key to its continuing growth and success. Retaining leading technology requires Lucas Aerospace to make significant investments in technology acquisition and have close relationships with the research base.

SUMMARY

  Technology is extremely important to the competitiveness of Lucas Aerospace and Lucas therefore has close links with Universities to identify innovations which may benefit its product portfolio. It considers relationships with Government laboratories and independent research organisations extremely important in achieving technology transfer. Collaboration in technology acquisition is important for affordable technology to develop its Aerospace Supply Chain. Ownership of intellectual property rights is key to protecting the technology investment and protecting our competitive position.

  Government sponsorship of research and demonstration permits Lucas Aerospace to invest 30 per cent more than would otherwise be affordable on technology acquisition. Lucas Aerospace welcomes the Foresight initiative in developing networks and priorities at a general level but are disappointed at the Government lack of support for the Society of British Aerospace Companies response to the Foresight initiative—Foresight Action. Lucas Aerospace consider that a larger proportion of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council sponsored research should be directed to industrially supported activities.

  1.  Lucas Aerospace is a "market pull" driven Company. The decision to pursue new technology is linked to a marketing assessment of the benefit of new technologies to future business opportunities. This applies whether these future opportunities are protecting existing markets and products, expanding these markets or penetrating new markets. A fundamental element of this process is maintaining close links with the full breadth of the research base, particularly in the UK and Europe to identify innovations applicable to our product portfolio.

  2.  The majority of the fundamental research adopted by Lucas Aerospace for application to products is originally conceived through Government funded research in Universities and government Laboratories. This fundamental innovation is then used in an applied research programme, usually carried out by Lucas Aerospace in collaboration with the innovating research house, to gain sufficient knowledge and understanding of the fundamental technology to apply it to our products. This is key to achieving the necessary technology transfer which is dependent on knowledge and people.

  3.  Lucas Aerospace have extensive links with both Government Laboratories and independent research and technology organisations. These links include joint technology programmes. These links include, but are not limited to, National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Atomic Energy Authority (AEA Tech) and the Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA).

  4.  Lucas Aerospace make extensive use of Government schemes to promote collaboration. These include the DTI initiative "Civil Aircraft Research and Demonstration—CARAD" and the Engineering and Physical Science initiatives—Innovative Manufacturing Initiative (IMI) and Link. These initiatives, through modest levels of sponsorship, promote collaboration in an effective way and give companies opportunities to use such collaborative research to develop the overall business supply chain with both customers and suppliers as well as gaining technology.

  5.  Lucas Aerospace considers it extremely important, wherever possible, to own the intellectual property rights (IPR) and patents relating to the technology in its products. This ensures security of product delivery and retention of competitive advantage. Where the IPR is owned by another organisation, Lucas Aerospace would try to achieve either an exclusive licence or at least exclusivity in the application in its field of business.

  6.  The Foresight Programme has played a significant role in fostering and developing networks. In the Aerospace industry the Society of British Aerospace Companies response to the Foresight Programme—"Foresight Action" has developed an Aerospace network of major potential benefit—It is disappointing that Government have not been able to respond in a significantly more positive manner to "Foresight Action" with matching funding.

  The Foresight Programme has identified priorities at a global level, in particular industrial arenas. It must, however, be recognised that any individual company will not necessarily see the Foresight priorities matching their priorities. It is felt that if these priorities are used as a guide to directing innovative research they should result in a research base of benefit to industrial needs.

  7.  The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have introduced, over the years, various initiatives to foster technology transfer (some of these were mentioned in 4 above). It is considered that these initiatives should be extended to ensure that the majority of sponsored research is supported and directed by industry. This would ensure that this applied research does serve the needs of the UK Aerospace industry and that the link with industry acts as the technology transfer bridge.

26 February 1998