The United Kingdom has a productivity problem. Since 2008’s global financial crisis sent economies spiralling, the country has experienced slower productivity growth than comparable nations – and lower than its historic average increase of around 2% per year. While solving the issue will take dedicated investment and attention from politicians, Bath academics are supporting innovation at all levels – from new products to the policy that enables them. 

His work has also helped to shape regional economic policy through a partnership with the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) to map the landscape of – and barriers to – innovation and productivity in the West of England. 

What’s more, Dr Dimos has spent the past year embedded in Government as a Policy Fellow with the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT): “The purpose of the fellowship was to facilitate knowledge-sharing between academia and government. It's about informing better-decision making for the government through inputs from academics.”  

He has particularly steered decisions around innovation clusters – areas with a heavier than usual concentration of R&D-active firms. A better understanding of the types of funding these clusters are most likely to attract, and how they intersect with an area’s productivity more broadly, has enabled government to target policy in order to support them more effectively.  

At the moment, Dr Dimos is also helping the Scottish Government in developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for clusters in Scotland. 

Driving growth for agriculture businesses 

As well as supporting innovation via policy, Bath academics are developing new technologies through their research. Professor Petra Cameron, from the University’s Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change, has been instrumental in creating a new spray coating for greenhouses that can improve the growth and yield of plants. 

Photosynthesis is most efficient at the wavelength of red light, and so much of the sunlight that shines on plants essentially goes to waste. The spray, created in tandem with the University of Cambridge, coats greenhouse glass like a varnish; this layer absorbs the blue light from sunlight and converts it to red light. This increases the proportion of red light received by the plants, in turn boosting the crop yield in vast commercial greenhouses. At present, these rely on large quantities of electric lighting, incurring both financial and environmental costs. 

“The way our coating works is similar to when you go to a nightclub and your gin and tonic glows under the UV light – the quinine in the tonic water is absorbing the UV and re-emitting it as visible light,” she says. “Our coating contains molecules that absorb UV light from the sun and convert around 60-70% of it into red light, making photosynthesis more efficient, meaning we can grow more with less light.” 

Trials of the coating have shown a 9% increase in yield on basil plants in treated greenhouses. There is also evidence in scientific literature that red light increases strawberry yield.

The tech could have particular benefits for countries such as the UK that receive less sunlight, helping to extend the growing season without the need for artificial lighting – cutting both carbon dioxide emissions and costs for growers. 

The team have submitted a patent for the product and hope to make the technology commercially available for growers in a few years. There’s good news for consumers, too, as Professor Cameron asserts: “There is even some evidence that suggests light can be used to improve the flavour of the fruit.” 

The design and production of aircraft has previously focused on incrementally improving structural efficiency and productivity of the parts that make up the wing, body and tail sections. However, the aircraft of the future will need to integrate new means of energy storage – requiring inventive approaches to conceiving and designing components. 

“So far, ZENITH has produced unique facilities for testing materials at the temperature of liquid hydrogen: below -250°C,” adds Professor Butler. “It has also led to GKN-Bath collaboration on UK Aerospace Technology Institute projects for bonded structures (MABOND) and next-generation composite wing structures (ASPIRE).”   

The team then proceeded to investigate use cases around human-robot cooperation: “If you have robots moving around the warehouse and people moving around the warehouse, how can they best collaborate?” 

The overall aim of Logidot’s technology system, underpinned by SWALOS’ academic insight, is to increase the efficiency of order picking in warehouses, saving companies time, energy and – ultimately – money.  

A third project helmed by Professor Giannikas, currently at the feasibility study stage, looks to employ artificial intelligence to act as a source of on-demand training or assistance for warehouse workers – whether they need to learn about a process or report an issue. 

“I think the way Logidot see our contribution is that we provide rigour to developing the AI,” he says. “What they want to avoid is having a superficial tool, that’s just being called AI but doesn't really do much.” 

This is a problem with ever-growing relevance: estimates suggest that 9% of the 35.6 million people worldwide with dementia are under 65 years of age, with around 370,000 new cases of young onset dementia annually. “There are many who could stay in the workforce and don’t,” he adds.  

The research identified many obstacles faced by people with cognitive impairments that could be alleviated by generative AI – such as finding words, organising text and putting words in the correct sequence. It also points to the adoption of tools such as digital calendars, which can provide automated reminders of meetings to aid those with memory issues, and swipe-card rather than entry-code access to buildings. 

Through supporting pioneering thinking – whether that’s creating new technologies, applying existing ones in new ways or shaping policy to support businesses at the cutting edge – Bath research is helping to create a more innovative future at all levels of society.