21st Century Manufacturing The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (2013) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A4: Catapult: Britian's New Initiative in Applied Research
Appendix A4: Catapult: Britian's New Initiative in Applied Research
Pages 337-367
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From page 337... ...
Total government funding for this effort has been set at £200 million over a five year period. Overall direction and core funding for the Catapult network is being provided by the Technology Strategy Board, a non-departmental public body largely staffed by individuals with backgrounds in business and industry.
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2010. The Current and Future Role of Technology and Innovation Centres in the UK.
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The University of Edinburgh developed a novel remediation technology for the removal of hazardous subsurface contamination but no UK-based licensing partner could be established, so the technology was licensed to a Canadian firm and is undergoing successful testing in the United States. House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee, Technology and Innovation Centre Enquiry, Written evidence submitted by UK Deans of Science.
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1998. Knowledge Transfer: A UK Competitive Weakness.
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It rewarded publication and pure research rather than work within industry. That has been a factor." House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry.
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of the application of intellectual study or scientific research to industrial problems."21Alfred Chandler chronicles how British industry failed to exploit the new production technologies of the "Second Industrial Revolution," capital-intensive, continuous process machinery that achieved high volume throughput and economies of scale.22 In postwar Britain, the manufacturing sector was criticized to the effect that there was not enough technical training on the shop floor, managers were poorly trained, and companies failed to attract talented young people. A U.S.-based management expert, Dr.
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You will see that it made no difference whatsoever to the electronics and IT industries in the United Kingdom in subsequent decades." House of Commons, Science and Technology Select Committee. Bridging the Valley of Death.
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Then came the banking crisis, which showed what happened when you bet the lot on the City -- and the bet didn't come off.29 British attitudes that have hampered innovation, are beginning to change. In government, all major parties recognize the need for a strategy to enhance the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, although a reluctance remains to pick "winners and losers"30.
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At the end of the 1970s, manufacturing accounted for nearly 30 percent of national GDP and employed 6.8 million people, but by 2010, its share of GDP had shrunk to 11 percent of the economy and the sector employed about 2.5 million people, an attrition rate of nearly two-thirds36. The composition of the British manufacturing sector has also undergone a transformation, with large and medium-sized firms at the top of the manufacturing chain headquartered in the United Kingdom having become "a nearly extinct species." ICI, GCE, Lucas, "and all the rest have all been broken up and sold off." The big British-owned factories of the 1970s are mostly closed or sold off either because of shareholder value demands for profit which encouraged retreat, or as a result of inept privatization which destroyed supply chains.37 The closure of the factories doomed many of the assembly and process companies that supported them: "When the big factories closed, the supporting infrastructure decayed.
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From page 346... ...
Although the sector has contracted in terms of jobs and percentage of GDP, output is actually 25 percent higher than it was in 1970, reflecting the rapid improvement of labor productivity.42 The British machine tool industry -- critical to the manufacturing sector -- recovered quickly from the recession and enjoyed dramatic growth after 2010, reflecting equipment orders from automotive and aerospace firms.43 RollsRoyce is a world class producer of technology-intensive products and is the second-largest maker of jet engines in the world. The United Kingdom has attracted investment by Japanese automobile producers and India's Tata group and retains the third largest auto industry in Europe.
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47 House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee, Technology and Innovation Centre Enquiry, Written evidence submitted by Rolls-Royce.
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Q219. 50 House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee, Technology and Innovation Centre Enquiry, Written Evidence Submitted by the Universities UK-AURIL (TIC 77)
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The 2010 Dyson report noted 52 House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry. Oral evidence.
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he education system is not giving young people the skills that businesses need. This skills shortage is particularly acute in the manufacturing sector.
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2012. Making Apprenticeships More Accessible to Small and Medium Enterprises.
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The key British government organizations involved in supporting applied research and innovation are summarized below. Technology Strategy Board The Technology Strategy Board (TSB)
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The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) is specifically targeted at knowledge transfer from universities to industry.
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In 1990, with the United Kingdom in recession, the Thatcher government began considering measures to bolster the British manufacturing sector.67 In 1991 the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology issued a report with castigated Britain's "antipathy to the manufacturing industry," citing the "great strength" of countries like Germany and Japan as arising from "well-tried systems for transferring technology from academic institutions to industry and from one company to another."68 In 1992 the Prince of Wales, who was interested in innovation policy, asked Sir John Fairclough, a computer engineer and former advisor to the Thatcher government, to head a working group to explore how to improve technology transfer. The working group published an interim report in 1992 recommending that the United Kingdom set up a network of "Faraday Centres," modeled on Germany's Fraunhofer institutes, to foster innovation.69 These institutions would concentrate on transferring technology by transferring people.70 The Conservative government endorsed this proposal, with the caveat that the Faraday Centres should be created out of existing institutions and funded by private industry.
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76 An editorial in the New Scientist in 1992 commented that "Although they have been touted as a way of helping Britain emulate German success in transferring technology from academia to industry, the first five pilot centres for the Faraday programme are merely a new way of training postgraduate engineers." New Scientist.
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administered by the Technology Strategy Board.81 Professor Ric Parker of Rolls-Royce commented before Parliament in 2010: "How many of the Faraday Centres that we set up in the 90s still exist? There is only one in the guise of the Begbroke Science Park at the Materials Centre there."82 THE TIC INITIATIVE The failure of the Faraday Centres was followed by a succession of major studies by the government, the political parties, and public organizations hammering on the same theme -- Britain urgently need to put its science to work for industry83.
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Hermann Hauser, to examine businessfocused "Technology and Innovation Centres" and their existing and potential role in enabling knowledge transfer in the United Kingdom.84 Hauser studied TICs in a number of countries and the existing knowledge transfer institutions in the U.K. Drawing particularly on Germany's Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft as a model, Hauser set forth a blueprint of recommendations for the establishment of a national network of TICs in the U.K.
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The Technology Strategy Board would be charged with creating and supervising the TICs. In the 2010-11 Parliamentary enquiry into Technical Innovation Centres, there was considerable support for a government project that would build upon existing research organizations rather than creating entirely new entities that would displace or compete with established ones.
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Dr. Tim Bradshaw, Head of Enterprise and Innovation for the Confederation of British Industry, testified that "There are already existing centres in the commercial space, operating commercially, that we do not need to replicate or tread on the toes of…If we are trying to get an impact on growth and commercial return quickly, then it is probably better to start, by and large, with things we have already and build from there." 91 House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry.
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The TSB indicated that its first priority was establishment of a TIC for high-value manufacturing.97 Branding One aspect of the Fraunhofer admired by British policymakers was the strength of the Fraunhofer brand, which is admired around the world and is closely associated with the excellence of German products and engineering. TSB Chief Executive Gray emphasized that British TICs should be given a collective brand name "that we can all buy into and use" as a "very powerful mechanism for the UK."98 In the end, it was decided to call the TICs "Catapult Centres" based on the use of "catapult" as a verb meaning "to thrust forward or move quickly."99 94 House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry.
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102 Interview with David Way, Director of Knowledge Exchange and Special Projects, Technology Strategy Board, and Mike Oldham, Head of Catapult Centres Programme, London, June 12, 2012. David Way of the TSB indicates the UK will not follow the Fraunhofer model in this respect, faulting it because "all [Fraunhofer]
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The KTP Associate works at the company to execute the project with the 103 Interview with David Way, Director of Knowledge Exchange and Special Projects, Technology Strategy Board, and Mike Oldham, Head of Catapult Centres Programme, London, June 12, 2012. 104 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
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High Value Manufacturing Catapult The first TIC opened by the Technology Strategy Board was the High Value Manufacturing TIC, launched in October 2011 and subsequently dubbed the HVM Catapult107. The TSB put the establishment of the HVM Catapult on a fast track, reflecting, the government's emphasis on revival of manufacturing.108The HVM Catapult's activities will embrace all forms of manufacturing utilizing metals and composites, as well as process manufacturing technologies and bio-processing.
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111 One of the organizations being folded into the HVM Catapult, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and roughly 60 private companies which include BAE, Boeing, and Rolls Royce, which enjoys a world-class reputation for high quality collaborative research. The AMRC was established in 2004 with an eye to building on Sheffield's centuries-old expertise in metallurgy and metalworking to develop new manufacturing techniques involving metals as well as new materials.112 The AMRC has already had a dramatic impact on Sheffield's economy.
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116 House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry. Oral evidence.
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Interview with David Way, Director of Knowledge Exchange and Special Projects, Technology Strategy Board, London, June 12, 2012.
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On that scale, I think it's a great start, but it has some way to go yet." House of Commons, Science, and Technology Committee, Technical and Innovation Centres enquiry. Oral evidence.
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