-1-
IMechE/ NSA- M speech
21st April 2009
[SLIDE 1]
I’d like to thank the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the National Skills
Academy for Manufacturing for inviting me to give this inaugural lecture.
Excellence in green manufacturing is close to my heart and I’m delighted to
be able to share and debate my thoughts on how we deliver the skills we
need to achieve our aims with such an influential and eminent audience.
I’d like to pay special tribute to the work Professor Banks as president, and
IMechE as a whole has done to raise the profile of Engineering in the UK.
The recent DIUS select committee report on engineering is just one example
of how influential IMechE has been in the policy arena.
I’m sure your partnership with the National Skills Academy will be just as
successful. These are exactly the sort of interventions we need from
engineers into politics and governance.
-2-
[SLIDE 2]
As that report notes, there are far too few engineers at the heart of
government, but IMechE is doing a great deal to redress that imbalance.
Thinking of the role of engineering in government reminds me that in his
speech to the Low Carbon Industrial Summit last month, Gordon Brown called
for a “Green New Deal” to create up to four hundred thousand jobs in green
industries1 in the next decade2.
In that speech, the Prime Minister compared the challenge of creating a green
economy to that of sending a man to the moon.
Gordon Brown is not alone in making analogies between the political
challenges of today and the great engineering achievements of the past.
Just yesterday, in reporting the government’s latest green initiative, the
Independent called it a new “Industrial revolution”3
These are useful comparisons.
As an engineer, it is impossible to look at the achievements of the Space
programmes of the United States, Russia and now China and India without
being inspired by the brilliance of their work.
When I think of the way my friend Dr Abdul Kalam, pioneer of the Indian
Space programme, has motivated a generation of Indian engineers and
technologists I can think of no better expression of what it means to be an
engineer.
1 Gordon Brown Speech to the Low Carbon Industrial Summit
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18530
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7927381.stm
3
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labours-industrial-revolution-1671315.html
-3-
[SLIDE 3]
Yet we all know the challenge of reducing the carbon imprint of our entire
economy is far bigger than even the space programme.
Over the last few years we have grasped the scale of the problem we face,
but I fear we have not yet grasped the scale of the solution.
It is this gap I wish to address today.
The challenge before us can be seen in the Committee on Climate Change's
work on how we can reach our 2050 target of an eighty per cent reduction in
green house gas emissions.
The committee’s first report sets out the level of change we need to make in
the next decade alone.
They propose that UK green house emissions be reduced by thirty four per
cent by 2020 compared to the 1990 level4, which is twenty one per cent
compared to 20055, They increase these targets by almost a third if a deal is
done at Copenhagen later this year.
Last month, the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University published a
response saying that this target was far too low, and would not achieve the
aim of keeping global temperature rises below two degrees celsius6.
Let me put it this way. If you say you plan to lose a third of your body weight,
and your wife then tells you that’s not going to be enough, you know that's
there’s going to be a tough few months ahead.
Of course, the pressure on green house gas emissions can be overstated.
4
http://www.theccc.org.uk/news/press-releases/22-ccc-recommends-a-minimum-34-cut-ingreenhouse-gas-emissions-by-2020-1st-december-2008
5 (CCC, 2008, p.113).
6 Tyndall Centre response to committee on climate change report, p1
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/Tyndall_Review_of_CCC_Report.pdf
-4The EU Trading Scheme (EUTS) covers half of UK carbon emissions, while in
the non traded sector, the ability to buy carbon offsets through the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) will reduce the pressure to reduce carbon
emission in the medium term by around one hundred and forty million tonnes
of CO27 per annum.
But to extend the weight analogy further, if a group of dieters agree a shared
target weight, then set up a market in calorie credits to help make it easier to
share the pain of dieting, someone still has to eat fewer doughnuts.
As engineers we must have the mindset that we will have to go further than
the great and the good are now proposing.
7 CCC, 2008, p.132
-5-
[SLIDE 4]
The CBI has pointed out we need to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions by
120 million tonnes over the next eleven years.8 to reach the Climate Change
Committees twenty one per cent reduction target for 2020.
For perspective, a recent report by the National Atmospheric Emissions
Inventory shows that UK CO2 emissions have fallen by eighteen percent
since 19709.
This decline is mostly due to the change from Coal to Gas power, reductions
in UK based energy intensive industry and the closure of deep coal mines10.
So in the next decade we must double the rate of emissions reductions we
achieved with the dash for gas, the decline of British manufacturing, the end
of coal mining and all the improvements we saw environmental technology
across areas like adipic acid emission retention and catalytic converters.
Then, to reach the 2050 targets, we have to do it again. and then again.
At the same time, we must also adapt our country for rapid changes in
environment as global temperatures increase by two degrees celsius or more,
taking major steps like changing our water infrastructure so we can cope with
changes in rainfall patterns, as ImechE’s recent report “Adapting to the
inevitable” sets out.11
8
9
http://climatechange.cbi.org.uk/uploaded/Roadmap_SummaryDistance.pdf p3
NAEI Annual report 2004 pp22-48
http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/reports/cat07/0701221151_Full_Report_NAEI_2004.pdf
10 Tyndall Centre response to committee on climate change report, p1
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/Tyndall_Review_of_CCC_Report.pdf
11 http://www.imeche.org/NR/rdonlyres/D72D38FF-FECF-480F-BBDB6720130C1AAF/0/Adaptation_Report.PDF p19
-6-
[SLIDE 5]
With that kind of task before us, when you try to list the manufacturing sector
skill sets that will be needed to reduce carbon emissions, it is easier and
simpler just to say “All of them”.
Take brewing, not an industry one thinks of being in the front line of climate
change, except perhaps for the refreshing qualities of a cold drink on a hot
summer’s day.
The Carbon Trust's “Climate change- a business revolution” report suggests
that up to 15% of brewing company values are at risk because of the impact
of higher energy prices, higher ingredient prices and higher transportation and
energy costs.12
So these companies need to find ways of reducing energy consumption,
cutting packaging and material usage, as well as finding ways to change the
carbon footprint of their distribution and back office operations.
12 Carbon Trust”Climate Change – a business revolution?” pp48-52
-7-
[SLIDE 6]
The burden is greater still in those sectors responsible for high proportions of
UK emissions. Last year the RSA looked at the sectors that will need to make
major changes in their 2020 Energy National Action Plan13.
Looked at from the carbon producer standpoint, we need to examine the
decarbonisation of energy supply, by increasing renewable energy production,
carbon capture, nuclear, improved transmission efficiency, biomass and even
fusion.
Then we need to consider changes on the industrial side, such as
construction, as buildings are responsible for 45% of energy consumption.
Design, refurbishment and construction processes will all need to improve.
We’ll need to see innovation in the micro-production of combined heat and
power, new materials technology applications in insulation, and the expansion
of combined heat and power.
In transport, we will see the impact of low carbon vehicles, modal shifts to
public transport, changes to our road, sea and rail infrastructure and major
challenges to power distribution systems if we adopt electric vehicle
technologies.
Next, there is the role of Government – both as a leading procurer of vehicles,
industrial buildings, engines, housing, power plants and infrastructure projects
and as a supplier of services like free insulation to residents and businesses,
an increase in which was announced only yesterday.
Finally there are the impacts of individual actions, such as turning off
computers, reducing fuel consumption, and so on.
These may not always appear to be what we traditionally regard as “skills”.
But a driver employing a low carbon driving style can save up to 40% of Fuel
13 RSA Energy National Action Plan, pp1-10, June 2008
-8consumption14 , according to a Japanese study that builds on work done
published by ImechE15.
That kind of savings will only happen if tens of thousands of commercial
drivers are trained to drive in a style that reduces emissions. To do that could
mean the mass deployment of virtual reality vehicle simulators of the type we
are developing in Warwick.
The New Economics Foundation recently described the challenge of the
Green New deal as:
“Creating and training a ‘carbon army’ of workers to provide the human
resources for a vast environmental reconstruction programme. We want to
see hundreds of thousands of these new high- and lower-skilled jobs created
in the UK. It will be part of a wider shift from an economy narrowly focused on
financial services and shopping to one that is an engine of environmental
transformation.”16
I think they are right on the scale of what we need to do.
And it is engineers who must lead the way.
14 Development of Simulator to Instruct Low Fuel Consumption Driving,”, Research Report of the
Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University ,Vol 52, PP33-38
15
“Driving style and traffic measures-influence on vehicle emissions and fuel consumption”
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering,
Vol 218 pp43-50
16
“A green new deal” New Economics Foundation,p3
-9-
[SLIDE 7]
Today, I fear we are a long way from where we need to be.
Take Nuclear power. We know we will need a new generation of Nuclear
power stations to deliver a low carbon answer to the energy gap.
The Climate change committee rightly says “The main constraints on nuclear
deployment are likely to be the feasible build rate, which is limited by the
supply of technically competent nuclear specialist engineers and demanding
regulatory frameworks...”17
Yet Dr Mike Weightman, HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations, told
Parliament that “he had 153 full-time equivalent inspectors and was expecting
to recruit about twenty more people. Unfortunately, he adds: “For existing
predictive business excluding new build I need 192”18
We don’t have enough scientists to inspect new nuclear plants, never mind
the engineers to build and operate them.
Nor do we have a surplus of science graduates to meet the future needs of
Industry.
At the degree level, only around 13% of graduates leave university with the
most valuable science, technology, engineering or maths degrees. This needs
to rise to at least a quarter if the UK is to match the growth in jobs ministers
have talked about19;
As the DIUS report “Demand for STEM skills”20 shows, over the last five years
there has been no increase in the number of graduate entrants in physics,
17
Climate change Committee report, pxviii
18 DIUS select cttee, Engineering: turning ideas into reality, HoC p18
19
2006 Labour Market Survey of the GB Engineering Sectors, April 2007, p 11
20 http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/Demand_for_STEM_Skills
- 10 chemistry and technology, while in engineering there has been a decline of
five per cent21.
These figures are even worse if we exclude students coming to study from
overseas, with fewer British engineering, chemistry, computing and
mathematics students entering University, and exactly the same number of
physics students as five years ago.
Finally, the “STEM pipeline” isn’t delivering a new wave of university entrants.
According to DIUS, the number of Physics A levels being taken today is lower
than in the late seventies, and the chemistry and biology cohorts haven’t
changed since the nineties.22
The picture isn’t any better in the graduate and intermediate skills workforce.
While there has been a 22% decline in the numbers of Chartered Engineers in
all age groups under 55 years, there’s been a two-thirds decline in the
numbers of Incorporated Engineers; and a 50% decline in Engineering
Technicians23. Almost half of process & machine operatives are aged over 45.
This Science, Engineering and Technology workforce is older than most
British businesses. Eleven per cent of us in this sector will retire over the next
10 years, and this impact will be greatest at the skilled operative level.
Already, the total number of registered engineers and technicians has
declined by twenty thousand, going from 263,999 in 1997 to 242,530 in
2006.24;
All of which explains why almost half of all companies report a shortage of
mechanical engineers25.
21
22
23
24
25
http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/Demand_for_STEM_Skills p36
http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/Demand_for_STEM_Skills pp43-44
Engineering UK 2007, p 63
Engineering UK 2007, p 60
; 2006 Labour Market Survey of the GB Engineering Sectors, SEMTA
- 11 In summary then, we have a huge need for skilled workers at the NVQ level 2
and 3 levels, both to replace existing workers and to fill the half a million or so
new jobs we envisage creating over the next decade. We know we need more
graduates just to manage the expansion we’ll need in fields like renewables
and Nuclear, as well as the expansion in fields we cannot yet predict.
Advantage West Midlands has made clear some of the immediate skills needs
on the ground. They say “There is... a need to respond rapidly to meet
emerging technology skills... ...in micro-generation, wind/wave and energy
efficiency installers. This includes opportunities for retraining of existing
competencies to provide employers with appropriate capabilities - e.g.
retraining plumbers to install photo-voltaics or solar heating, or re-skilling
existing engineers for the new wind energy industry”.26
Finally, we need to support the research level innovation that will supply us
the sort of technological breakthroughs that will allow us to meet our legal and
international emissions obligations.
We must do all of this against the back drop of a flat or falling number of
science graduates, an aging engineering workforce and, of course, a global
economic recession.
Now, you might think this is rather a negative picture.
Not a bit of it.
This is a wonderful opportunity.
26
http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/Demand_for_STEM_Skills p22
- 12 -
[SLIDE 8]
The greening of the economy means that engineering - the practical
application of scientific expertise to every aspect of our lives - will be at the
centre of our political, social and business agendas for a generation.
Companies should see this as a great opportunity – rather than tiresome
bureaucracy and an extra tax burden.
It is a chance to reduce costs since energy efficiency means a more
impressive bottom line.
It is a chance to invest in new technology.
It is a chance to re-skill
and it is a chance to improve processes and reduce waste.
The Carbon Trust’s strategic vision of “making business sense out of climate
change” could be a mantra for any forward looking company.
This is a huge lever for engineering as a profession – and one that we must
pull upon until we get what we need to make change happen.
To deliver the changes the Climate Change Bill has made into law, we will
need not only improved skills and new technologies but a restoration of
Engineering to the heart of what it is to be British.
The Victorian engineers produced the industrial revolution which lifted Britain
to the position of wealthiest nation on the planet by 1900. It is no exaggeration
to say that it was engineering that made Britain “Great” – and it can do so
again.
We must put a generational revival of engineering at the heart of that
strategy.
- 13 We will need new Brunels, new Bazalgettes, new Armstrongs and new
Lucases – and since our world is now global, we will need to recruit the
skills and inspirations of new Kalams and An Wangs too.
As the government acknowledged only yesterday with the launch of it’s
Industrial strategy paper, we will need to train, educate and recruit a small
army of green minded graduate and post graduates to lead the changes we
need in businesses and corporations.
At the same time we must transform the skills of a larger army of employees,
technicians and process engineers to stand ready to meet what will be
shifting, complex and unpredictable technological and environmental
pressures.
- 14 -
[SLIDE 9]
How can we do this?
The first step is to admit uncertainty and make our plans accordingly.
We cannot plan what precise skills will be needed ten, twenty, thirty years
from now, because we do not know what technologies will be most in demand
then or what breakthroughs will come.
The Leitch report, excellent as it is, provides an object lesson. In its 150
pages, the environment is only mentioned twice, and the word “green” is only
mentioned as an authors name in footnotes. This is not to attack Leitch, but to
remind us of his central point that no-one, no matter how wise, can plan what
skills we be needed in the future27.
The state cannot know where the resources need to go so should not
attempt to plan and provide what skills will be needed.
Of course, we do have some “Known knowns” in Donald Rumsfeld’s famous
phrase.
We know definitely that we will need more technologists and engineers in
certain fields– such as in Nuclear, in renewables and energy efficient
transmission.
Roadmaps like those being developed by the CBI and the Skills Academies,
and the demands expressed by employers through RDAs, such as the West
Midlands skills gaps I mentioned earlier, will be very helpful in identifying the
precise skills we need to deliver.
If we take a car, for example, manufacturers know they need to examine
processes in every aspect of production.
27
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/furthereducation/uploads/documents/200612%20LeitchReview1.pdf p13 “History tells us that no one can predict with any accuracy future
occupational needs.”
- 15 For example, In-mould painting reduces the need for paint shops, which
consume 40% of the entire energy used in vehicle production, so a huge
chunk of costs and emissions can be removed at a stroke, if we develop the
technology and build a workforce with the needed skills.
We will also need to find ways of giving consumers the stimulatory clues of
weight, quality and energy while reducing component weight and complexity.
Research and understanding of experiential engineering, as we're undertaking
in Warwick, will be vital in giving designers the skills they need to meet
consumer needs and environmental regulatory pressures.
We'll also need to integrate manufacturing, information systems and service
much more closely, so that it will simpler for drivers to know if a car is
producing more emissions than it should, whether that is related to driving
style or a need for servicing.
In each of these areas, it should be possible for manufacturers to develop
roadmaps of technologies, and match these with a roadmap of needed skills
in their workforce.
With forethought, a smart demand led system will work, given sufficient
resources and funding commitment on all sides. This will require much greater
simplicity for employers and learning institutions as they try to convert skills
roadmaps into reality. The current arrangements, are, we all agree, far too
complex.
- 16 -
[SLIDE 10]
Then we have the “known unknowns”. Taking cars again, we do not know
yet whether we will be driving hybrid drives or all electric cars or some other
technology in twenty or thirty years time.
Nor do we know what form international regulations will take three decades
from now, though we know that increasing political pressure will lead to ever
tighter regulation.
As a result we cannot plan precisely what skills will be needed a generation
hence.
So we must “Green Leitch” by first ensuring the plans set forward for
improving core skills include awareness of Green issues, and by making sure
government and employers equip students and workforce entrants with the
ability to contribute to green engineering in whatever form it takes in future.
This means a much greater emphasis on technology and science in schools
from eleven onwards, a continued expansion of apprenticeships in
manufacturing and engineering and a growth in UK core stem subjects at
university.
- 17 -
[SLIDE 11]
Finally, we have the unknown unknowns.
We cannot yet know what research breakthroughs we will see in the next
twenty years or more.
We don’t know how the ITER Fusion research programme will progress, or
how carbon sequestration technology will develop, or how far Geo
engineering will be able to help us with environmental adaptation.
There are two steps to take here.
First we must ensure that we stand ready to apply and exploit disruptive
technological breakthrough, wherever it comes from.
That means being open to collaboration with overseas business, researchers
and governments. It means lifting immigration rules that prevent gifted
students coming to the UK, and it means accepting that other countries will
have research expertises we can’t match so we focus our activities in core
areas.
Second we must fund and provide green engineering and applied research at
levels that mean we have innovations to bring to the table ourselves. We need
research breakthroughs that other countries will want to invest in and to learn
from. I suggest Low Carbon Vehicles, materials technology, plastics
electronics and digital engineering as possible core areas.
- 18 -
[SLIDE 12]
To achieve all this we need a compact between Government, Industry
and Academia.
Government must first provide a strong science education in Schools as
a matter of urgency, to ensure that there is a strong pipeline of talented
students moving towards university, vocational education and
apprenticeships.
Government must also provide a far stronger vocational skills system at
NVQ levels 2 and 3, working with the Skills Academies, Train 2 Gain and
through a major investment in the Further Education and apprentices sector.
We will need a major increase in the number of people with vocational
qualifications and that requires a change in focus for post 14 education.
Much of this is already part of the Leitch report, but must be pursued with
even greater urgency in those sectors that will impact emissions.
This includes the increase in apprenticeships and skills provision with
Train2Gain, which need to be simple and easy for employers to access. We
must not lose good demand led intentions through endless agencies and over
complex delivery bodies.
Government must also make careers in Industry more accessible. Right
now we have a major opportunity to stop the brain drain to the city. Graduates
in STEM subjects are looking again at manufacturing as the City lowers its
reward packages. We need to be able to offer opportunity to those who are
seeking inspiration.
While I am a loyal Labour peer, I think that the Shadow Chancellor’s proposal
yesterday on supporting Science graduates through master’s courses while
they look for work 28 is a very constructive contribution to this debate.
28
“Tories to unveil £600m package to avert brain drain” Times, 20th April
- 19 I am glad I have been arguing for such a step for some time, so I cannot be
accused of stealing it!
I believe we also need an immediate programme of funded graduate
internships in areas such as low carbon vehicles, aerospace, electricity
generation and material technology. This will make a real difference to our
marketable skills in five or ten years time.
We need this early industry experience for future project leaders because
research has shown that differences in management practices between the
USA and Britain explains 10 to 15 per cent of the productivity gap in
manufacturing between the two countries”29. We need engineer business
leaders if we are to make up that gap.
I know from personal experience that spending time on the shop floor in real
businesses transforms students understanding of how to turn an idea into an
achievement. We can’t let a lack of engineering experience amongst
managers hold us back in green technology.
Next, Government must transform its attitude to applied technology.
We should double, treble, even quadruple the money available to bodies like
the Technology Strategy Board and the Regional Development agencies, so
that they can fund technology demonstrators, incubators and applied
technology research projects in areas like Nuclear, Low carbon Vehicles,
Adaptive Technology and renewables.
The Technology Strategy Board has a budget of seven hundred million for this
three year cycle for all applied research30. I believe it needs to be a billion a
year if we are to see a real transformation in applied environmental research
in this country.
29 Management practices across firms and nations, Bloom et al., LSE-Mckinsey, June 2005
30 http://www.innovateuk.org/_assets/pdf/corporatepublications/technology%20strategy%20board%20-%20connect%20and%20catalyse.pdf
- 20 Not all of the projects we fund like this will work. But if we accept the scale of
what we need to do to succeed, we have no choice but to embrace
uncertainty and accept the risk of occasional failure. The Japanese
Government recently announced an extra Ten Billion pound investment in
environment technologies31. We are not near that scale, but we need to be.
The Innovation White paper is a good start, with its proposals of lotteries and
easy to access funding for short term applied research, but the current level of
funding is nowhere near enough. The research councils sound sympathetic
but are not yet putting significant research funding into applied technology.
That must change.
Yesterday, the Government took some welcome steps, and I am pleased that
John Denham and Peter Mandelson are asking the Research Councils to
consider the economic impact of research.
But considering and acting are very different things, as anyone who deals with
the Civil Service knows.
The 500 million the Government announced for green industrial investment
and green insulation yesterday is most welcome, but is small by comparison
to what others are doing. We need giant steps.
Of course, if we want Government to be bold, they cannot be expected to
share this burden alone.
31 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ2993hp8ors&refer=home
- 21 -
[SLIDE 13]
Business must join with them.
I know I am preaching to the converted on this point, as those firms
enlightened enough to join the National Skills Academy are those that
understand that they have a big role to play in changing Britain’s skills profile
and are investing in doing just that.
However, it is still worth pointing out that paying for research and the
acquisition of intermediate skills is not the task of Government alone.
Business must be willing to lead.
Let me be blunt.
If British manufacturing companies do not invest in research in exciting
new technologies, companies overseas will.
When we look at emerging economies, we see a huge willingness to invest in
both the skills of the workforce and applied research by the employer.
In China, in Korea, in Singapore, university engineering departments are
constantly working with businesses on applied research projects.
I saw this recently in Singapore where at the Data Storage Institute they are
conduct cutting edge storage research and train highly-skilled youngsters.
It is no surprise that Singapore produces 40% of the world’s hard drives and
70% of the storage technology for high-end computers.
Companies in Britain need to work collaboratively with businesses and
researchers around the world who are focussing on these issues, and they
need to have something to bring to the table. British engineering is respected
around the world, but our willingness to back that engineering with capital
isn’t. This must change.
- 22 This is especially the case in the areas, like Nuclear, where we know that
there will be increased demand for skills.
Here, we must be honest.
If the government gives clear signals about demand in nuclear and
renewables, then the market must accept responsibility for meeting the
coming need for industry and company specific skills.
In many cases that means improving reward packages, After all, if British
manufacturing companies do not offer good reward packages to
graduates and talented workers, they will work for companies that do.
We cannot expect graduates and skilled workers to be attracted to jobs that
offer them little reward. British companies should adopt silicon valley style
reward packages for top engineers, giving those who create value a stake in
the businesses they build.
If British companies do not invest in the skills of their workers, we know
companies in China, India, Brazil and South Africa will develop the skills
of theirs.
We know that Britain sits 17th in the OECD for low skills, 20th on intermediate
and 11th on high skills and that 17 million adults lack basic numeracy.
Business and Government have to address that together, as Leitch says.
Government must offer core learning through-out peoples working life, and
business must offer workers and students the chance to learn the skills they
need to succeed in the new green businesses.
- 23 -
[SLIDE 14]
To make the kind of breakthroughs we need, this green skills compact
also needs to include the Academic sector, from FE colleges to
University research departments.
We must ensure that FE colleges are focussed on employer based learning
through apprenticeships, day release programmes, in work training and the
provision of basic skills to adults.
These programmes work. They change lives; improve productivity, [PAUSE]
and make companies more efficient. To deliver on the ground we need a
much simpler funding and delivery mechanism than the current alphabet soup
of agencies, sector skills councils, RDAs and so on. Simplicity is key to
making skills partnerships happen.
But what’s good for FE is good for University too. The focus on
Business partnerships should not stop at the University gates.
We should use the expansion of innovation and the growth I suggest for the
Technology Strategy Board to integrate undergraduate and graduate study
seamlessly into professional careers.
At WMG we brought modular courses to the UK. Now we need green modular
engineering and science degrees in every engineering department so that
those who wish to improve their engineering skills over a period of years are
able to do so, supported by their employers who know that their learning will
be directly beneficial to their work.
We need an applied research focus to be at the heart of every RDA’s low
carbon economy programme and we need the Governments Low carbon
industrial strategy to take the strength of UK science and the massive
investments it has received over the last decade and direct it to solve the
most pressing social crisis for a century.
- 24 [SLIDE 15]
I believe that:
By increasing manufacturing spending on R&D in green areas and supporting
that private investment with increased applied technology spending;
By opening up our businesses and universities to overseas innovators and
students so we are able to apply global advances in green technologies;
By transforming our manufacturing reward packages so it is those with the
skills to create value who can reap the greatest reward and by making careers
in manufacturing more accessible so young people can see how engineering
can change the world;
By the Government supporting business investment in green engineering
skills at low and intermediate levels while British manufacturing companies
accept the need to help fund research into breakthrough technology
applications;
Then British companies in sectors from Aerospace, Nuclear, Automotive and
engine technologies, to batteries, renewables and construction will be able to
build both the technologies to drive green growth and the skilled workforce to
fuel that expansion.
Many observers think this is daunting task.
Can we meet the difficult challenge ahead?
In the words of the new American president:
“Yes, We Can”
Thank You.