BBC R&D and its interactions with academia - Prof. Graham Thomas BBC R&D BBC MMXIII
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BBC R&D and its interactions with academia Prof. Graham Thomas BBC R&D R&D © BBC MMXIII
About BBC R&D
• BBC engineers have been at the forefront of developments in broadcast
technology since the founding of public service broadcasting in the UK
• Approx. 180 engineers/scientists/technologists + support staff
– 150 based in London (mainly W12)
– 30 based at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Manchester
• Annual budget approx £16M
R&D © BBC MMXIIIProject areas in BBC R&D
Major Workflow Description
Areas
• Computer vision & tracking
tracking, 3D
3D, new audio experiences
Production • Transfer commonly through 3rd party licensing
• Audience benefit & revenue opportunities
• Production processes, archive, analysis & retrieval
Media
• Transfer through 3rd party adoption or spin-out
Management & • Cost savings & efficiencies (DMI)
Archive
• Standards, implementation, development, strategy
Distribution • Transfer through standards & promoting adoption
• Efficiencies (DVB-T2) & audience benefit (HD)
Audience & • Accessibility, interfaces, navigation, new content
• Transfer through standards & promoting adoption
U
User
• Development of prototypes
Experience
R&D © BBC MMXIIIWe address these workflow areas through three types of activity
Work flow area Audience &
Media
Activity
y type
yp Production Distribution User
Management
Experience
p
Development Activity
y
40 45% resource
40-45%
(0-1 years)
Applied Research 40-45% resource
(1 – 5 years)
Strategic Research 10% resource
((5+ years)
y )
R&D © BBC MMXIIIWhat are we trying to achieve by collaborating with academia?
• To build critical mass in topics of national significance
– This is encouraged and rewarded by the Funding Bodies so that the
really big problems that are transformational can be addressed
• To jointly develop IPR that goes into Standards
– in particular Open Standards in order to drive uptake by wider
i d t
industry
• To host research students from universities in order to improve their
employability prospects in industry and their prospects in academia
– by giving them a more rounded perspective of research challenges
being solved in the real world
R&D © BBC MMXIIIOur multi-university partnerships
• Partnerships with a core group of “best of breed” universities in the
relevant field
• Agreed terms for IPR and shared goals for the key work areas
• Collaboration activities include sponsoring / hosting PhD students,
hosting MSc students, supporting EPSRC proposals (including
programme grants), seeking EU/TSB funding opportunities, external
PhDs for BBC staff, guest lectures from BBC staff
• Surrey, Salford, QMUL, Southampton, York:
– BBC Audio Research Partnership – 5-year programme of activities on
audio technology,
gy including g spatial
p & object-based
j audio, audio
semantics
• UCL, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bath, Swansea, Dundee:
– BBC User Experience & Accessibility Research Partnership – 4 4-year
year
programme on new models of user experience, physical interaction
methods, accessibility, interfaces for programme production technology
R&D © BBC MMXIIIAudio Research Partnership ‘Launch’ event
R&D © BBC MMXIIIOther key partnerships
• UCL: Four-year partnership with 80 co-located staff (including BBC staff
running our Connected Studio innovation programme)
– programme of research work that seeks to advance state-of-the-art in
communications technologies, internet research, content production, user
experience (UXD) and access services
• Bristol: Working with Bristol Immersive Technology Lab on new video formats
and compression techniques
– iCase studentship; BBC staff member on secondment; TSB and EU project
applications
• Manchester: steering group between Manchester and BBC (not just R&D part)
– covers graduate recruitment, mentoring, skills development, and public
policy in addition to identifying opportunities for research projects
R&D © BBC MMXIIISupport of Doctoral Training Centres
• Currently work with DTCs at Lancaster, Southampton, Manchester,
Nottingham
• Letters of support recently written for 11 further Doctoral Training Centre
applications – expect around 4-5 to be funded
R&D © BBC MMXIIIOther partnerships
• Currently have iCase studentships with York, Salford, Surrey,
Sheffield
• Links with Cambridge including through Cambridge Wireless (network
of over 300 companies involved in wireless technology)
• Master’s student projects with various other universities, e.g. Royal
Holloway
R&D © BBC MMXIIIWhat works well about university collaborations
• Combining in-depth theoretical knowledge from
academia with practical real real-world
world experiences
and challenges from BBC
– Helps academic research meet our practical
needsd
– Allows new problems to be addressed
– Gives academics access to real-world datasets
• Additional resource
– Increases the number of people and range of
facilities that we can bring to bear on our key
challenges: more than we could afford by
working entirely in-house
• It
It’ss fun!
– Broadens network of people that we know,
learn about related areas, make new friends
R&D © BBC MMXIIIWhat doesn’t work so well about university collaborations
• Teaching duties of academics can make it difficult to schedule meetings
or get enough of their time
• Time frames for academic research tend to be long (often 3 years)
– Can be difficult to work with academia on shorter-term problems
• Some universities still see IPR ownership as important, which makes it
difficult for us to reach agreement
– But manyy universities now realise that more value comes throughg
demonstrating impact of their work (helps get more EPSRC funding)
than through owning the IPR
– We always freely licence the IPR back to the university for teaching
& research
R&D © BBC MMXIIIThanks for your attention!
Graham
G h Th
Thomas
BBC R&D
graham.thomas@bbc.co.uk
h th @bb k
www.bbc.co.uk/rd
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