Faraday programme / Select Committee on Science and Technology.

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.

Date:: [1993], ©1993

Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Faraday programme / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

27/152 (page 3)

15 July 1992] [Lord Gregson contd.] should generate this out of their own thoughts fills me with a great deal of enthusiasm. (Sir John Fairclough) 1 know very little about the technopolis. I do know that the more we can encourage local initiative to bring a greater degree of common purpose between the two communities, the better we will all be served and if the technopolis approach does that, I think it is to be encouraged. (Dr N Johnston) My Lord Chairman, if I could perhaps add to that, there is no doubt that in Japan and France the technopolis concept has been a very powerful one and they have used it to implant research and development activity in areas where there previously was not any. They have also used it as a catalyst for the congregation of groups of synergistic companies around R&D facilities. I think, however, that perhaps rather like science parks, there is a danger that the technopolis concept becomes hijacked in terms of property development rather than its fundamental purpose which is to improve the technology that is available and taken up by British companies. 6. That is not the proposition in Manchester of course. (Dr N Johnston) No, not at all and I am not suggesting it is, but itcan tend towards that direction. If I could go back to the HEI interaction, I think the point is that the relationship between higher education institutes and industry is particularly good for larger companies and particularly good for the processing industries, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The feeling was that the interaction with smaller companies, and I do not necessarily mean very small companies, but medium- sized companies of several hundred employees, was perhaps not that good and that in addition in the mechanical and physical sciences the interaction again was not necessarily as good as it could be. Lord Porter of Luddenham 7. Could I ask why do you think it is not so good? We have had research associations in almost every industry in Britain, and you have told us the AIRTO has 20,000 members and so on, and we have had these for 40 years or so. They have been, as far as I can see, very similar to your Faraday idea where they have been funded partly by government and partly by industry and they have done the transfer and there is close liaison—I worked in one once—there is close liaison with both universities and industry. What is the difference between the Faraday institute and one of those? (Sir John Fairclough) 1 would not wish to be negative on the AIRTO laboratories at all. Our motivation was to amplify their efforts and to grow their capability and skills in both directions with industry, on the one hand, and the universities, on the other. 8. So you would be simply calling what used to be the research associations ‘‘Faraday institutes’? (Sir John Fairclough) No, no. I think we need a system that actually requires a degree of competition, that they would have to demonstrate skill and capability in some field or other which had industrial intellectual underpinning on the one hand and a [Continued university capability and interest in forming a partnership with them. Therefore on merit they would be awarded Faraday Centre status. It would be wrong, I think, to say all AIRTO laboratories should become Faraday Centres. One needs a system which distinguishes. Lord Howie of Troon 9. I would like to come back to the question raised by Lord Gregson. I have not fully grasped the concept of City of Innovations nor indeed, whatever it was, the technopolis. I would like to think of it just as a kind of science come business park. I wonder if Sir John could define it for me? (Sir John Fairclough) This is the second proposal that the Prince of Wales Steering Group made. It is nothing to do with Faraday Centres. Although there is a coupling, I do not wish to confuse the two. 10. I only mentioned it because you did. (Sir John Fairclough) The logic of my delibertions went as follows: that we need to improve the competitiveness of existing products and processes. The bulk of British industry is represented by the smaller and medium-sized companies. How do you deliver capability and skill and knowledge to small and medium-sized companies? It is difficult to do it nationally. One ought to try a mechanism locally. Our case study work has demonstrated that the Scottish Office and their relationship with higher educations and industry in that community has served them very well indeed. Graeme Davies, a member of the group, observed that many of our great “red brick’”’ universities were founded at the height of Victorian success by the city fathers of the day to serve their community. Therefore that led to the idea of building a new mechanism, a modern mechanism, of a modern-day city father, if you like, that could build a greater degree of coincidence of purpose. It was more about skills and people in that idea than it was about research and the Faraday Centre was really about research, as I have described it, and although one would like to see a Faraday Centre pursuing research in a field that is relevant to industry in the community, the two ideas are not connected but only through— Chairman 11. Maybe I should say that this Committee is as passionate as you are in wishing to see contacts between universities and industry which are meaningful and lead to technology transfer and a boost to the economy. We very much want to see that brought about. I think what we are concerned about here in questioning you is to what extent you have a new scheme for doing something with the same things in mind but doing it in a different way which will add to the resources we already have for things of that sort. I have to say that at the moment I am not very clear what your new scheme is although we wholly applaud your objectives. (Sir John Fairclough) The newness of the proposal is to create a centre where researchers share a common infrastructure and work jointly on problems that they are trying to solve of value to industry.