David Willetts - optical communications "strong candidate" for additional funding

The Universities and Science Minister responds to criticism of his choice of "eight great technologies".

Speaking at the IET Mountbatten Memorial Lecture on 9th October, Mr Willetts defended his selection of the eight technologies chosen to receive additional funding from the Government, but also admitted that there were key technologies that did not make the list.

Responding to UNLOC PI Prof Polina Bayvel's comment that "Big data and the subsequent seven technologies all rely on the availability of agile smart and capacious information and communication systems," Mr Willetts agreed that optical communications is a "strong candidate that we will try and sneak in somewhere".

Read more about the lecture in the Professional Engineering magazine.