DTI launches new round of Technology Programme

We may have found an area where Gordon Brown, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, see eye to eye. Brown loves R&D: Blair is hot on the environment and ways of reducing climate change. These just happen to be at the heart of the latest R&D giveaway from the Department of Trade and Industry.

"Sustainability in energy and the environment, R&D in buildings, low carbon technologies and renewable technologies all featured in the budget speech and are included in this latest collaborative R&D competition," says the Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson in the press release on the announcement. The Technology Strategy Board of the Department of Trade and Industry has fingered these as subjects that need a helping hand in the DTI's Technology Programme.

This is the full hit list of topics:

• Design Engineering & Advanced Manufacturing: Management of complex fluid flow conditions
• Electronics & Photonics: Novel Technologies For Low-Cost, High Efficiency Electronics And Lighting Systems
• Emerging Energy Technologies: Low Carbon Energy Technologies
• Oil & Gas Technologies
• Sustainable Production & Consumption: Energy Efficiency Technologies  (includes Building Design & Controls and Manufacturing Processes)
• Bioscience & Healthcare: Exploitation of Plant and Microbial Bioscience for Industry
• Safety Biomarkers for Pharmaceutical Development
• Advanced Materials: Materials for Extended First Use and Re-use
• Information & Communication Technology: Data, Scientific and Medical Visualisation for innovative products and services

All the details will be revealed later this month at a series of events around the UK. The first will be at the Barbican on 26 July. All being well, we'll be there to report back.