EPSRC Quantum Technologies research community infrastructure needs survey

Overview

The EPSRC Quantum Technologies (QT) team wishes to get a better understanding of our research communities’ infrastructure needs, both currently, and over the coming decade.

We have created this survey to enable individual members of the various QT communities to communicate those needs to us in a structured way, so that an analysis of the responses can inform our strategy and help us to make well-informed funding decisions.

The survey is aimed at individuals in the academic research community who are working in areas directly related to applied QT, namely quantum computing, quantum networks and communication, quantum sensing and imaging, quantum navigation and timing, and quantum technology for healthcare.

It is not aimed at those working in fundamental areas of “blue skies” quantum physics research, except where their work directly links to the application of quantum technology.

Why your views matter

Our ultimate goal is to ensure the UK maintains a thriving QT research capability, which in turns contributes towards a prosperous economy, and delivers beneficial outcomes for society.

We need to understand your community’s needs both currently, and over the next few years – what does the community need to be able to carry out the research required to achieve the aims of the UK Quantum Missions, and/or achieve the goal described above.

Specifically, we want to understand what EPSRC’s role might be in providing infrastructure which supports this goal.

We acknowledge that our survey comes on the tails of other work such as the Royal Academy of Engineering Quantum Infrastructure review and the DSIT Road-mapping questionnaire. The former focussed on industry requirements, and the latter focuses on critical national infrastructure. Our survey differs from these and complements them because it focusses on academic research infrastructure needs – it is your opportunity to tell us about your own community’s needs.

For the purposes of this survey, we wish you to consider infrastructure at the medium to large scale – costing approximately £400,000 and – and the people and supporting components, such as data capability, that support such infrastructures.

We have endeavoured to make this survey as “light-touch” as possible, recognising that your time is precious, so hopefully you will find it relatively easy to tell us your thoughts.

Finally, we wish to make clear that there is currently no funding allocated specifically to fund any infrastructure needs which may appear in the results of this survey. What the results will do, however, is enable us to act wisely and promptly whenever such funding does become available.