Ian White,Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, Professor at University of Cambridge Research: Ian White has built up a substantial research activity in the field of optoelectronics and optical communications and his team numbers approximately 45 people publishing on average 60 papers a year. In terms of research output, the group is one of the largest in the field of optoelectronic systems in the UK. Highlights of his research have included: the development of the first all-optical laser diode flip flop, the first negative chirp electroabsorption modulator and the invention of a technique for transmitting radio frequency signals over long distances of multimode optical fibre. Several of these advances have already made commercial impact, the offset launch technique for enhancing the bandwidth of optical fibre links having already been adopted within Gigabit Ethernet standard.