09 Dec 2020
UK Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowships 2020
Dr Ross Drummond one of six engineering researchers awarded grants in topics that can assist the intelligence community
Dr Ross Drummond
The UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships support cutting edge developments in topics that can assist the intelligence community while providing mentoring to a new generation of engineers.
Dr Ross Drummond, who works in the Department’s Control Engineering Group with Professor Stephen Duncan, is one of six engineering researchers to receive a 2020 fellowship.
His project explores the design of high-energy-density battery packs. He explains, “As the electrical energy revolution drives forward, Lithium ion battery packs are becoming more energy dense and there is a growing awareness of the risk of fires spreading through the pack. My research explores the design of high-energy-density packs that do not compromise on safety.”
The Fellowships are offered by the Government Office for Science and administered by the Royal Academy of Engineering and provide a vital link between academia and the intelligence community. Each awardee receives funding for at least two years of their project and mentorship from a Fellow of the Academy as well as an advisor from the intelligence community.
Professor Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng, Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to HM government and a Fellow of the Academy, said: “We were delighted by the number and quality of the applicants for the UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowships 2020. The six fellows who were selected cover a range of topics which are of interest to the government national security community, from explainable artificial intelligence to gravity portals and nerve agent detection. Excellent pieces of research come out of this programme that support the work of government departments, and the relationships that are built between government and university research groups form the foundation of future research focused on problems that the national security community faces. We welcome the 2020 cohort to the programme.”
