In the U.K. and other countries there is an increasing pressure for funding agencies to demonstrate the social and/or economic benefits of the research they sponsor. Two recent attached reports that were initiated by Mike Payne and produced by Goldbeck Consulting for the UK-JCMaxwell CECAM node address this issue. The first report entitled ‘The economic impact of molecular modelling‘ takes a broad look at the use and benefits of atomistic modelling. For the Psi-k community the most important conclusion of this report was that quantum-mechanical methods were of greatest value when incorporated into systems with other modelling methods. The second report entitled ‘Industry interactions of the electronic structure research community in Europe‘ is more specifically focussed at the Psi-k community. This report addresses the question of whether there is a significant volume of industrially funded research carried out within academic groups. Remarkably, 80% of the research groups surveyed had links with industry, usually with more than one company and extending over a significant period of time.
Together, these reports provide clear evidence for the economic benefits of the research carried out by the Psi-k community. You are welcome to use the information in the reports to demonstrate the potential benefits of research, but please reference the reports and provide links to the documents if you do.