Abstract
1987 may go down in the history of techno l ogy as the year of the warm superconductor. The publication in March of a report (1) of a ceramic that superconducts at liquid nitrogen temperature sparked off a f l urry of excitement in the technical press, led to scenes more typical of a po l itica l convention at a major US scientific meeting, (2) and prompted governments and companies into new initiatives. In Britain, for example, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) held a meeting in June with representatives from ten industrial companies to discuss the possibility of a multi-million pound programme of co l l aborati ve research linking corporate, government and university laboratories. (3) Meanwhile, the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) invited bids from universities to become the site of a major new national centre for research into superconductors, and launched a f10 mi l l ion programme of research over three years,(4) while a leading electrical and electronics company, GEC got under way a de ve l opment programme costing £1 mi l l ion per year, of which it was putting up £300,000 itself and seeking the balance from collaborators.(5)
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References
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Gummett, P., Bate, I. (1988). Defence-Civil Relations in the Development of New Materials Technology in Britain. In: Gummett, P., Reppy, J. (eds) The Relations between Defence and Civil Technologies. NATO ASI Series, vol 46. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7803-5_18
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