Cryogenic Technologies brokering meeting - 23 October 2008

76 Portland Place, London
Thursday 23^rd October 2008

This event was organised by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Knowledge Exchange Service Kite Club. (51) delegates represented a number of UK companies, research councils, universities and research facilities such as Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Daresbury Laboratory (DL) and CERN.

The main objective of the workshop was to provide the UK industry with an overview of the leading edge technologies developed through STFC funding. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN pushed cryogenic technologies to a new level which resulted in a number of new developments that have been presented at this event. There was also active promotion of cryogenic expertise and capabilities at STFC labs (RAL and DL) and the Astronomy Technology Centre to catalyse further interaction between STFC-funded researchers and industry.

The workshop covered a number of cryogenic technologies from CERN available for commercialisation. Presentations included:

• An overview of cryogenic applications from CERN including the Large Hadron Collider was presented by Johan Bremer. Emir Sirage, CERN Technology Transfer Officer, presented cryogenic technologies from CERN available for commercialisation. He also described the general technology transfer framework that allows member states to transfer knowledge from CERN to industry.
  
  
• Rodrigo Ormeno from Siemens Magnet Technology explained the modern requirements for cryogenic systems used to cool superconductive magnets in MRI systems.
  
  
• John Vandore from Cryox Ltd gave an overview of services available to industry from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Cryox is a RAL spinout company that has been created specifically to make cryogenic expertise and infrastructures at RAL accessible to other businesses.
  
  
• Cryogenic technologies for astronomical instrumentation was presented by Dave Melotte from the Astronomy Technology Centre.
  
  
• Shrikant Pattalwar from ASTeC, Daresbury Laboratory explained current and future requirements for cryogenic technologies to be used in the future particle accelerators.
  
  
• Alex Efimov from STFC Knowledge Exchange Service presented funding schemes and services from STFC to support technology transfer and collaborative partnerships between scientists and industry.

This workshop provided companies with excellent networking opportunities and stimulated discussions about potential collaborative projects.

Programme