It is no exaggeration to say that almost every aspect of ones daily life is touched by the heritage of defence research – from waking up to a radio controlled alarm clock, driving in a car with SAT-NAV, conversing with colleagues anywhere on the world via a cellular ‘phone and e-mailing via the Internet.

Defence research, driven by the need to generate solutions to difficult, real world problems, has spearheaded many of the major advances in technology which in turn have spawned whole new industries and underpinned the success of national economies. In pushing technology forward, benefits have spilled from defence research into the civil economy, evolving domestic products which increasingly are being pulled back as second generation products into defence solutions in a virtuous circle.

In the military domain, the imperative to be one step ahead of the threat drives the requirement for new technology and ‘blue sky’ research. This is not without significant technical risk, which is why only advanced nations are active participants. The Cold War imperative for encryption and ballistic missile development for example drove the rapid evolution of the computer, with the requirements for even faster and more accurate computation. The advances afforded by the computer technology in turn provided the means to accelerate the race for space and the emergence of the satellites which have become the fulcrum of today’s network dependent world.

The British Government has played a key role over many decades in leading defence research, often working closely with Britain’s allies, to bring about the development of many of the materials, structures and infrastructures that we take for granted today but which were not even conceived possible in the early years after the Second World War.

This address will look at the fascinating interplay between military and civil technologies, from radar through to microwaves, from advanced signal processing to congestion charging systems, from military crypto to information assurance in financial markets. To meet a very hard military need technology is pushed well beyond the civil state-of-the-art. Some of this new technology finds application in fast moving commercial markets where increased volume drives down prices, enabling further military take up by taking advantage of the new levels of affordability.

And what of the future? What can we expect to impact our everyday lives in future years from the military and security challenges being researched today?

President's Address 2005 - Full Text
BUCKS FOR YOUR BANG - What defence research has done for you: The IEE President's Address 2005 - Sir John Chisholm

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