On 7th October 2025, several members of the Noise Network Plus Executive Board attended the launch of the UK Acoustics Sound Economics Report 2025 at Prince Philip House, London. The event was organised by The UK Acoustics Network Plus (UKAN+) and featured contributions from Professors Kirill Horoshenkov and Richard Craster, John Lincoln, Joanna Watts, and Abigail Bristow. We are proud to have contributed to producing the report, together with UKAN+, the Institute of Acoustics and the Association of Noise Consultants (ANC). Many thanks to everyone involved.

This report provides evidence of the growing economic and societal importance of acoustics as an enabling technology that underpins many sectors central to the UK’s prosperity, including healthcare, defence, energy, and construction and the built environment. In 2025, the UK acoustics industry produced goods and services worth £5.2 billion and employed 20,000 people across over 780 companies.

The report provides five recommendations:
1. Support a leadership body to convene industry, government and academia to spread awareness of industrial demand and advances in acoustics.
2. Work with the Department for Business and Trade to increase international awareness of UK acoustics capability as a national asset.
3. Conduct a review of UK acoustics capital infrastructure and access to key resources vital for expansion, e.g., in AI and machine learning.
4. Develop stronger collaboration between the professional bodies to which acoustics professionals affiliate, e.g., Institute of Acoustics, Institute of Physics, Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Audio Engineering Society, to ensure that acoustics is entrenched in design.
5. Provide broader opportunities for up-skilling of the acoustics workforce across all career stages and education levels.

You can read the report in full here: https://lnkd.in/e8GRqiDV.
The original 2019 report is available here: https://lnkd.in/eQV5YF2U.

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I’ve just returned to Manchester from the inaugural AI in Education at Oxford University hashtag#AIEOU hashtag#AIEOU2025 convening at the University of Oxford.

Thank you to Sara R., Rebecca Williams, Clare Jarmy, Simone Ries, Vanessa Mar-Molinero, Dr. Birgit Phillips, Edward Longhurst and everyone else who welcomed me so warmly to the AIEOU community. This is a very important discussion. I particularly appreciated the philosophical, legal and primary and secondary education-related insights into the regulation debate. I look forward to participating again.

I spoke about the application of AI and ML to acoustics and cutting edge educational practice in higher education. It was a privilege to represent the Institute of Acoustics (IOA) and the Noise Network Plus as Education, Outreach and Skills Working Group Chair.

At the IOA, the Executive Director of Education and Digital Strategy, Mary-Jane Newton, and I are continuing to gather case studies of innovative use of AI in Acoustics Education. Please contact me here or via email if you would like to share your activity.

Congratulations to Sara, Rebecca, Elizabeth Wonnacott and Dongxia Nie, Oxford University Press and the other members of the AIEOU community for a highly collaborative and productive event, where the welfare of the student was the priority. Thanks to the wonderful Clare Jarmy for the photograph.

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The Noise Network⁺ launched at Prince Philip House with over 100 people joining in person and online to discuss the challenges around noise pollution and how the network can come together to help solve some of them.

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