North West set for innovation boom
1 min read
Business has the potential to make significant gains from the well-established R&D capacity available across the North West, according to the North West Business Leadership Team (NWBLT).
Its report, the NWBLT said in a report, 'Exploiting the Excellence', published today that North West had become 'world class' in science and technology.
It said that the region had acquired "an international reputation of excellence particularly in the fields of advanced materials, energy, cancer and high performance computing".
The NWBLT called for the region to be transformed into "an attractive place for technology based SMEs to flourish".
It said this could be achieved by tackling barriers to investment and growth, in particular, by working with the Local Enterprise Partnerships in each sub-region via the North West Fund.
NWBLT companies, which employ more than 50,000 people in the region, collaborated with universities, centres of R&D excellence alongside Local Enterprise Partnerships to highlight the region's capability to be at the heart of an "innovation revolution".
Juergen Maier, NWBLT chair and md of Siemens Industry UK, said: "What is clear is that as a region we have the infrastructure in place to be at the heart of an innovation boom. If this is to happen we need to leverage business investment and marry it with our great universities to ensure we can create growth through technology.
"We also need to marshal our resources as a region and market these strengths in critical markets globally. Our region has a strong history of innovation and real talent when it comes to research and development. Our call to action should be more focus, establishing more areas of world-class research - which in turn will result in more investment from international companies."
