Kevin Rowan column

Nov 26 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal

WE need a closer relationship between science and manufacturing.

Last Thursday was a big day in Parliament for the North-East. John Hutton expressed hope that UK manufacturing could respond to emerging markets, while the Council for Science and Technology outlined six key areas of future opportunities in developing technologies.

This region can capitalise on the innovation and manufacturing opportunities of the next generation.

The “most promising” emerging technologies include:

Carbon Capture and Storage – enabling coal and gas to be used for power generation without adding further to CO2 emissions.

Disaster Mitigation Technologies – predicting, preventing and responding to the impact of disasters such as earthquakes, tropical cyclones and flooding.

Plastic Electronics –- developing a new generation of products, such as computing, sensors, flexible displays, solar cells and communication systems.

Low Carbon Distribution Networks for Electricity Supply – enabling and stimulating large-scale, local electricity generation by renewable and low carbon technologies.

Medical Devices – improving healthcare, targeting prevention, diagnosis, treatment and related technologies.

E-health – delivering and enhancing health services through the internet and related technologies.

All of these opportunities, and more besides, are already emerging in the North-East, through the excellent work of the North-East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) and the region’s universities.

On the same day these new technologies were being identified as priorities, Secretary of State for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, John Hutton, was encouraging UK manufacturers to respond to the opportunities presented by the pressure to adapt to, mitigate and tackle climate change.

The North-East has a very strong manufacturing base to exploit these new markets. The UK remains the sixth largest manufacturing country in the world directly supporting 2.9 million jobs.

Rapid global and technological advances are changing the economic challenges for manufacturers.

China and India already account for nearly 50% of world real GDP growth. Their importance as a driver for future growth is set to continue in 2008 and beyond.

The Government’s renewed Manufacturing Strategy aims to help strengthen the future of UK manufacturing by supporting companies to embrace new opportunities in increasingly competitive global markets.

There is, of course, only so much Government can do. One of the key challenges for us is to ensure that there is sufficient and effective connection between the first rate manufacturers that we have and the emerging technologies that are developing in the region.

The region is moving towards the elusive ‘knowledge economy’, but it doesn’t have to do that at the absolute expense of a valuable manufacturing base which provides much-needed, good quality jobs.

The North-East has a history of making things, and making them well. With the right kind of integration of innovation, business support, skills development and manufacturing, we can go on making things for a very long time.