Science park looks forward to a bright future

Jan 29 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

EXPANSION plans are well under way in the region’s science and technology sector. Alastair Gilmour finds out who is working faster, and smaller.

THE North East's foremost science park is surging forward with development plans, flying in the face of the country’s economic woes and gloom- riddled predictions.

NETPark, the North East Technology Park at Sedgefield, County Durham, where innovative companies are involved in everything from printed lighting to counter-terrorism technology, is preparing a funding bid of £13m to enable it to expand in all directions.

Its development, driven by County Durham Development Company (CDDC), the inward investment and business development arm of Durham County Council, recognises that innovation and enterprise-based investment is crucial to the growth and prosperity of a culture based on the knowledge economy. The impressive NETPark site, 33 acres of fully serviced land and one of the fastest-growing science parks in the UK, is a combination of university research centres, spin-out businesses, centres of excellence and hi-tech companies specialising in plastic electronics, nano and micro technology, software, photonics, microelectronics, defence and healthcare.

It’s an area of work where talent can flourish and where businesses have the resources to compete with the best in the world. But CDDC realises that it’s also an area of business that can be tapped much further for the benefit of the whole region.

Stewart Watkins, CDDC managing director, has a fondness for saying that if you’re working at NETPark you’re working with the brightest minds in the business of science and with the best brains in the science of business. It is a well-founded observation.

He says: “One North East has chosen NETPark to be one of its Innovation Connectors, there are seven from the region, which we’re obviously very pleased about. This gives us the mechanism to apply to the European Regional Development Fund. They are now encouraging us to work up the detail of a number of special projects, another step forward in our progress.

“The projects we have applied for are split into a number of components, some of which are physical developments on the site itself to continue the momentum, plus further-reaching ones, our principles and those of Innovation Connector is in engaging with local communities and looking at longer-term requirements.

“A project like NETPark is longer-term in things like where is the workforce going to come from in ten or 20 years’ time? We need to make sure that science and technology are very much part of the school curriculum across the region and throughout the country.”

An adaptable local workforce is a highly important element in the equation, so not only are cutting-edge companies being encouraged to set up and invited to follow through expansion plans, but facilities such as a restaurant, gym and creche are considered not as simple add-ons but as pivotal to job creation and personnel retention.

Progress at NETPark has been swift. The first building, the NETPark Research Institute, was officially handed over to tenant Durham University by prime minister Tony Blair in July 2004. Then came NETPark Incubator Phase 1 in December 2005 which is 1,600 square metres of office and laboratory space for new companies and technology-driven university spin-outs and a number of support organisations. Funding for these two buildings has come mostly from Durham County Council and One North East, with a substantial contribution towards the Incubator from the European Regional Development Fund.

Phase 2 of the NETPark Incubator doubles the space for the commercialisation of research and new technologies. The Business Village, a development of bespoke R&D “pods” will provide grow-on space for expanding companies and a location for inward investment.

And, the Plastic Electronics Technology Centre (PETeC) is a £10m project for “flexible functional” materials at the forefront of pioneering work in plastic electronics, a revolutionary new technology that independent forecasts predict will be a £20bn industry by 2015 and balloon to a £200bn industry by 2025. It also where Stewart Watkins sees NETPark’s “signature”.

“NETPark has become a recognisable brand,” he says. “It’s the consequence of the quality of business development and the quality of the science and technology being undertaken there.

“The global economy, the national and regional economy are all suffering the effects of the economic downturn but we’re looking towards the future. In local economic development terms, we’re engaging in science in schools, we’re attracting graduates and businesses and retaining graduates and businesses.

“The Centre for Process Industries (CPI), which operates the PETeC project, is leading on disseminating science and technology throughout those communities. Kromek, formerly Durham Scientific Crystals, has developed an application for bottle-scanning equipment to be used in airport security areas which can identify liquids in bottles. It has been installed at Dubai airport and in Washington DC.

“ROAR Particles has been working on forensic technology able to analyse a fingerprint and tell with reasonable confidence a person’s age, ethnicity, what they have been smoking, and if they have been touching something like Semtex.

“The Centre For Advanced Instrumentation has very close links with Durham University in astronomy and some very fine engineering, working at the nano-scale. We’re able to demonstrate this advanced engineering to local firms to help them look into the future.”

And certainly to work with the brightest minds in the business of science and with the best brains in the science of business.