Public sector job seekers take note: the education sector offers first-rate opportunities because universities are generating more wealth and jobs than ever before.

Turnover made by academic spin-off companies increased from £212m to £289m between 2001 and 2002, according to the third annual Higher Education Business Interaction (HEBI) survey.

There were 213 new spin-off firms set up during the period, and the number of people employed by these companies increased from 10,500 to 12,000.

Science and innovation minister Lord Sainsbury stated that UK universities have risen to the challenge of transferring their knowledge into industry and are becoming increasingly entrepreneurial.

The pioneering work of these institutions is being turned into practical applications and is beginning to make a real contribution to the economy.

The number of new patents filed by UK higher education institutions also continues to increase. There were 967 patents filed in 2001 to 2002, compared with 896 the previous year and 725 in 1999 to 2000.

Just over half of higher education institutions now offer incubation or start-up facilities. Higher education institution income in the UK from contract research for business increased from £266m in 2000 to 2001 to £328m in 2001 to 2002.

Hot topics
Robin Mannings, university research programme manager at BT Exact's Adastral Park research centre, explained that hot technology areas in education research include nanotechnology, biotechnology, and cognitive science.

Research in IT tends to concentrates on areas such as ubiquitous computing, with attempts to embed computing resources into everyday objects, people and animals.

Grid computing is also popular, with the development of supercomputers that can solve major science problems.

"In time, however, everyday computers will also be federated to share processing and storage resources," said Mannings.

Another focus is decentralisation, where peer-to-peer applications are being developed to allow users to exchange information directly and freely.

Mannings suggested that artificial intelligence remains a complicated area, despite many years of research. But he believes that universities have helped to develop very useful software agents which help solve knowledge management and resource management problems.

Real machine intelligence remains elusive, but the Semantic Web is a movement seeking to give deeper meaning to the information that helps power the internet.

"Part of the future is about trying to make computers less stupid, or less difficult to use. Computers should help people, without having to learn new ways of interaction," explained Mannings.

Many multinationals now have their own research departments and are working closely with universities to develop projects. At the other end of the spectrum are the UK's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

"Some SMEs are very high-tech and are hotbeds of invention and innovation, but most have very limited resources to devote to university engagement," said Mannings. "Governments recognise this and promote schemes to help SMEs."

Public sector organisations are also becoming involved in education research. Mannings believes there are many reasons why universities and private and public sector organisations are keen to collaborate.

"Universities need to show they are benefiting the wider economy to justify public funding. They also need to continue to lead thinking in a changing world, where enterprise is recognised to be of great importance to society and the economy," he said.

"Industry needs to improve its quality and productivity by getting better at doing the right things. Business also needs to recruit the most talented graduates, and it needs to exploit the fruits of university research quickly."

Examples of close collaboration include Adastral Park and Microsoft's facility near the University of Cambridge.

"Rather than doing research and expecting industry to exploit it, universities should be engaging with business at many levels," insisted Mannings. "One effective way is to swap people, or even allow people to have simultaneous roles in business and academia."

Credit where it's due
Technology is not getting the recognition it deserves for advances in the processing and sharing of information, according to a group of academics and vendors.

The Information Work Productivity Council (IWPC), formed two years ago, is part of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and counts Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Intel among its supporters.

Speaking at a forum held by the group in New York, IWPC chairman Jeff Raikes suggested that current measurements failed to capture the value of IT to the economy.

"The genetic sequence of Sars was developed and identified between teams in China and Toronto in a month," he pointed out.

"Labour statistics don't have a way to measure that kind of rapid collaboration, especially not across national borders."

The IWPC claims that measuring economic productivity in the 21st century means a shift from measuring business process outcomes or the quantity of economic production to measuring the quality of that output.

It is working to develop a framework for businesses to measure productivity that results from technology such as email, instant messaging, team workspaces, video conferencing and web conferencing.

The IWPC's latest findings look at best practice in the areas of customer feedback in product development and IT support for global collaboration.