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Last October, Conservative leader David Cameron asked vacuum-cleaner boss Sir James Dyson to produce a report setting out proposals to make Britain the leading high-tech exporter in Europe.
His report, which was published this week, contains proposals to help build this new economic model and create well-paid new jobs.
Dyson’s proposals include creating a greater esteem for science and engineering, including a major national prize scheme for engineering and commitments, as well as the development of ’grand projects’ such as high-speed rail and nuclear-power plants to demonstrate the government’s ambitions for the country.
Dyson also wants changes made at university level to encourage more young people to choose science and engineering degrees, including industry scholarships for engineers, where the costs of bursaries to students are shared between industry and government. He would also like to see universities given greater freedom to develop shorter courses where appropriate, or create more vocational degrees.
He also recommends that, to bring the best new ideas created in UK universities onto the market, there should be more focused funding for knowledge transfer in universities and new ways of promoting collaboration through public-private research institutes.
Dyson also wants to make changes to improve financing for high-tech start ups, by increasing the generosity of the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) relief for angel investors that support high-tech companies and a government-guaranteed business-loan scheme to encourage more lending by banks to innovative businesses.
He also suggests refocusing R and D tax credits on high-tech companies, small businesses and new start ups, and delivering on ambitions to deliver 25 per cent of procurement and research contracts through small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Dyson argues that the proposals ’need to occur alongside the much-needed deficit reduction that the Conservatives have argued for’.
57 pages I am hoping well worth working through.
While esteem and funding is nice, I hope I’ll be seeing less on comms budgets and quangos to play with money and dole it out, and more on getting cash in the hands of doers and shakers, especially matchmaking those with great ideas with those who have the proven ability to help bring them to sustainability ad profitability!
What an excellent idea. I have been employed in Engineering since 1960 & I am still working part time now!Business looks quite healthy this year; however, where have all the Engineers gone? there is a whole generation missing due to poor Government policies with regards to manufacturing since globalistion started in earnest in 1985. I just hope that we can make Manufacturing more worthwhile financially as a career because the Job satisfaction is there to be had; where else can you make useful things out of virtually useless blocks of materials!!
Urgently give the money in small experimental doses to anyone who want to try things out. Monitor the results for signs of potential. Learn from failure. Avoid perfectionism. Develop track records. Repeat.
http://www.cherubventures.org/
How many more times have we got to hear this same old retoric? Successive Governments irrespective of Party have systomatically discouraged manufacturing now for about 30yrs and today we are finally paying the price. Latest headline “export deficit widens” is that a suprise? what have we left to export these days? Failed Bankers? Great ideas from Dysen but dont anyone hold your breath. By the way Mr Blair yes all manufacturing has gone East but only as far as Italy & Germany. You forgot China cant make small batches of technical goods!
Good idea, Mr Dyson. But the mentality of UK companies has to change, in-particular the very low proportion of their budgets spent on R&D; with targeted assistance from national government. Also, UK industrial enterprises have poor training programmes in place – I went through one – and low productivity: you’ll need a shed load of money to alter the current cultural mindset; time for anther tea break. The approach taken by government and industry in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland are reasonably good representations of how to improve engineering outlook; and product quality. Dyson Group plc, spend a fair proportion of budget on R&D.
However, I’ve not read the report: instead, venting my spleen.
Oh! How I wish I could be optimistic that something will happen along the lines of the report, but I spent all my working life in engineering so I have little confidence. There are too many accountants and lawyers running the country, and business, for me to have any hope.
Dyson advising on high tech exports? A bit much now that we import his high tech products!
quote “… the fact that more than 70% of full time eng. & tech. postgrads are from outside of the EU shows that our universities provide world-class research led courses in engineering …”
It also shows where most of the bright ideas will go. Educate our own people, not the rest of the world! Then we wouldn’t have to import post grads & PhDs as we are told we need to do now.
To quote “… commitments to grand projects, such as HSR, nuclear & offshore wind power, will demonstrate to the public the Con government’s ambitions for the country …”
What’s that then? Projects run by the Europeans, trains and reactors from Japan, cables from Germany / Norway, turbines from Germany / Denmark?
Do we have a part in all this?
Well .. they might build the odd manufacturing plant so we can do some semi-skilled fabrication / assembly work.
Hold on .. I was forgetting the most important part – Finance.
Don’t worry, of course we will be involved in that – we are paying for it!
The Dyson report has certainly put the spotlight on the need for a joined up approach between academia and business and through our work at Birmingham Science City, we would strongly echo the sentiment that science and engineering should be central to the vision for the UK economy. In the same week of the Dyson report, The Royal Society also published a report on a similar theme, stressing the importance of the need for a long term strategy in this area. Whilst I agree with many of the recommendations outlined in Sir James Dyson’s report, there was a dose of realism in The Royal Society’s report about the length of time it will actually take to realise these ambitions that, at times, was lacking in the Dyson report.
One of Dyson’s recommendations that hit the headlines is the need for investment in large scale projects. This is the approach that we are taking at Birmingham Science City through stimulation of demonstration projects across the region. For example, Birmingham City University, the University of Wolverhampton and Birmingham City Council are working towards making us the first wireless city. In the field of medicine, expertise at Aston University and Worcester University is set to put us at the forefront of ocular allergy with the establishment of the UK’s first treatment centre. These flagship projects show that we’re serious about innovation in the West Midlands region, not only to the rest of the UK but also act as a showcase on the international stage.
The Dyson report puts a lot of emphasis on the UK’s rich vein of research, but highlights how good ideas often don’t translate into commercial success. While this may be the case, there is, perhaps, too much emphasis on solving this problem. Instead we also need to look at creating market demand for innovative solutions from the public and private sectors. One way Birmingham Science City is doing this is by adopting an innovative approach to procurement processes – in a tendering situation, this could be about asking bidders to develop a solution to a problem, instead of confining the brief to what is already possible. This will help businesses, working with the research base and the public sector, to pull through innovation from the ‘brilliant brilliant minds’ that Dyson talked about in his report.