Comments from the referees

One reviewer wrote "The Study Groups have for 35 years been a unique (until copied in other countries) and extremely successful mechanism for bringing academic applied mathematicians into contact with a range of industries, for formulating and solving or initiating the solution of hundreds of real industrial problems and, most importantly, of bringing it home to industrialists how many of their problems are susceptible to mathematical attack and how valuable mathematical insight and modelling can be to them. The most recent three years reported on in the present Final Report, have been even more successful than usual, involving more companies, more universities, more research students, more problems and leading to more written reports. I believe this amazing success is principally due to the involvement of the Technology Translators of the Faraday Partnership in (a) helping the organisers make contact with more companies than they otherwise could and (b) allowing the industrialists’ problems to be slightly pre-digested, so that the Study Group participants could get going at once, without having to wait while everyone learnt what the industrialists were really talking about.

"The lesson for the future is clear: interaction between academic mathematicians and industrial companies will be much more effective, both in general and in the Study Group format, if experienced Technology Translators are involved."

A second reviewer wrote "…the Study Groups are internationally leading and innovative, as evidenced by adoption of the format in many other countries and by the International Review of Mathematics’ endorsement of the Study Groups as an activity in which UK mathematics leads the world. The aims of the Study Groups fit squarely with EPSRC’s own mission to promote ‘connectivity and partnerships between academia and industry’ and to ensure that the ‘outcomes of research investment are well matched to the needs of industry and are exploited for the benefit of the UK’.

"…the work of the Smith Institute in preparing for each workshop and facilitating reporting has been crucial to successful management."