Mapping the UK's Research & Intellectual Property (IP) Project

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has worked with Talis and the Research Councils UK, the Funding Councils, Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to gather data on networks and patents. This information has been linked during the project to demonstrate how the data could be used in the future so that when a business - eg a potential inward investor - asks for hard facts on the clusters of excellence in a specific technology area, the leading universities and firms in that space are identifiable at the click of a button. This type of mapping is being piloted for stem cell research, RFID, advanced composite materials and plastic electronics - all areas of UK excellence. This is the first output of a major project to map the information available about the UK's Intellectual Property.

Partner Organisations

The Technology Strategy Board is a government-funded body which works with business to drive innovation in the UK. Our role is to stimulate technology-enabled innovation in the areas which offer the greatest scope for boosting UK growth and productivity. We promote, support and invest in technology research, development and commercialisation. We spread knowledge, bringing people together to solve problems or make new advances. We advise Government on how to remove barriers to innovation and accelerate the exploitation of new technologies. And we work in areas where there is a clear potential business benefit, helping today's emerging technologies become the growth sectors of tomorrow.

Research Councils UK (RCUK) a partnership that enables the seven UK Research Councils to work together efficiently and effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities. RCUK currently coordinates the delivery of multidisciplinary research in six priority areas:

  • Energy
  • Living with Environmental Change
  • Global uncertainties: Security for all in a changing world
  • Ageing: lifelong health and wellbeing
  • Digital economy
  • Nanoscience through Engineering to Application

A number of members of RCUK have contributed to this project.

The Intellectual Property Office* is the official government body responsible for Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the United Kingdom. These rights include: Patents, Designs, Trade marks and Copyright. Patents protect the features and processes that make things work. This lets inventors profit from their inventions. A patent permits the sale, licensing and commercialisation of an invention in exchange for disclosing the invention to the public. Linking and mapping published patent data enables the visualisation of research and technology innovation."
*Intellectual Property Office is an operating name of the Patent Office.

Talis is a well-established, innovative, UK-based, privately-owned software company. Since its foundation in 1969, Talis has experienced steady growth, by attracting new customers and focusing on customer satisfaction and customer retention. Integral to this success is its ability to deliver continual product enhancements with excellent service and support, in a manner that meets the evolving needs of our customers.

Talis is one of the world’s first companies applying leading edge Semantic Web technologies to the creation of real-world solutions. Talis has already demonstrated the power of its innovative platform by using it to drive the transformation of both its existing product line, as well as the creation of new products. Talis is now working with a range of organisations on a consultancy basis to help them unlock the power of a Linked Data approach to publishing open data.

Iconomical was founded in 2007 by Internet veterans Liz Turner and David Boyce. The business is currently a member of Amsterdam's Media Guild, located in the historic Pakhuis de Zwijger. We make it possible to explore the connections that shape your collection, so that you can discover the real stories that exist in your data library. By joining things together, iconomical can help make your archive a clear, easily accessible information resource which everyone will want to explore.

About the technology

The animated visualisation on the home page has been built by Iconomical using Flash technologies, supplemented by Google Maps. Data exported by the contributing partner organisations, has been transformed into RDF and stored in the Talis Platform following Linked Data principles. Data to drive the animation and used to populate other pages in this pilot application are the results of SPARQL queries applied to the Talis Platform store containing project data. This data is open for direct access via the Platform API.