Our global research and development capability

We are developing a global R&D (research and development) capability to support BT’s drive to meet customers’ needs around the world. We have a world-class team of researchers, scientists and developers, including over 3,100 people at Adastral Park (England), a research team based in Malaysia and a new R&D centre in China. We have announced plans to establish a joint research and innovation centre in the United Arab Emirates with the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) and Khalifa University. And we play a lead role in the India-UK Advanced Technology Centre, a consortium of industry and academic partners from India and the UK.
     We have dedicated innovation scanning teams in the US, Asia and the Middle East who identify more than 600 new technologies, business propositions and market trends a year.
     We embrace open innovation, reaching out beyond the company to find the best people and the best ideas, wherever they are in the world. We are involved in partnerships at every stage of the innovation process, from scientific research to the development of new products and services.
     In 2008, we invested £1,252 million in R&D to support our drive for innovation. This investment comprised capitalised software development costs of £720 million and R&D operating costs of £532 million. This compares with £1,119 million in 2007, which comprised £741 million of capitalised software development costs and £378 million of R&D operating costs.

£1,252m invested in R&D in 2008

Embracing open innovation
We work with more than 30 universities around the world and have open innovation partner relationships with the University of Cambridge, UCL (University College London) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Examples of collaborations include our work with Cambridge University to research protocols and architectures for wireless mesh networks, and the work we have done with MIT Sloan on the applications of systems dynamics modelling.
     We are also a member of the Participate consortium – a UK Government-funded project to explore the ways in which a combination of pervasive broadcast and online media can create mass-participation events. And we led the EU-funded NM2 collaborative research project into ‘shapeshifted TV’ – TV that can be personalised to suit the preferences of individual viewers.
     Building on our long tradition of innovation, we filed patent applications for 168 inventions in 2008. We routinely seek patent protection in different countries including the US, Japan, France, Germany and China, and we currently maintain a total worldwide portfolio of around 8,000 patents and applications.

External venturing
We have successfully launched nine innovative, independent start-up companies, six through the corporate venturing partnership unit New Venture Partners, in which we are a limited partner. They include Azure Solutions, which merged with Subex to become the world’s largest revenue assurance company. Real Time Content is the latest company to be launched.