The Lloyd’s Register Foundation International Conference 2016 was held over two days in London on 13 and 14 October. The conference, titled Bringing safety to life, was the first public international event to be held by the Foundation. Presentations at the event served to emphasise the Foundation’s unique impact in the advancement of engineering-related education and research and supporting work that enhances safety of life and property.
“This was our first flagship conference on this scale showcasing the breadth of the Foundation’s international activities. Speakers ranged from apprentices to Nobel Prize winners, all of them highlighting how the Foundation is turning strategy into action and making an impact in pursuit of our charitable purpose. The conference also demonstrated the LR 21st century model for doing social business, with Lloyd's Register (LR) and the Lloyd's Register Foundation working in partnership for a safer world. LR achieves this through its commercial activities supporting the clients and sectors it serves, while the Foundation benefits wider society and the communities it serves through its charitable activities. The conference was a great success and everybody involved – including our staff, stakeholders and grants community - have a lot to be proud of,” said Prof Richard Clegg, Foundation Chief Executive.
Some 270 delegates attended the event over the two days. Foundation grant holders from around the world showcased the breadth, variety and impact of their work. It provided a relaxed and informal atmosphere that stimulated debate and networking. We will be publishing videos of all the presentations on this website.
The Foundation used the event to launch several initiatives.
- The Lloyd’s Register Safety Grand Challenges. This campaign aims to identify biggest threats to safety related to critical infrastructure through a public consultation and it will then ask what can be done about them to make the world a safer place. The Foundation is inviting input worldwide through the dedicated Safety Grand Challenges website www.safety.challenges.org. See the full news item about this campaign.
- A £10 million resilience engineering programme with global engineering and consultancy firm, Arup. The programme will make infrastructure - for sectors including energy, transport, food and water - more resilient to shocks and stresses. The team will work with businesses, engineers, researchers and others to develop standards and build networks of learning and best practice. See the full news item about this campaign.
- Foresight review of robotics and autonomous systems, the fifth in a series commissioned by the Foundation as part of its examination of emerging technologies.
Foundation grants and programmes that have resulted from previous foresight reviews include a £10 million research grant for the Alan Turing Institute, grants totalling £9 million to three international consortia in the field of nanotechnology, and the £10 million resilience engineering programme announced during the conference.
During the event the Foundation awarded three prizes for grant holders. The winners, all from Imperial College London, were:
- Elena Psyllou for the student poster competition
- Stavros Sidiropoulos for the student presentation competition, and
- Dr Arnab Majumdar, the grant holder of the year prize.
Speakers included:
- Prof Sir Andre Geim, Nobel Prize Winner and Regius Professor and Royal Society Research Professor at The University of Manchester
- Lord David Willetts, Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation, Chair of the British Science Association
- Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, Professor of Biostatistics and Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge University
- Dr Nancy Kete, former Managing Director of The Rockefeller Foundation leading global resilience work
- Sir Mark Walport, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government and Head of the Government Office for Science