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Supporting Science, Research & Development
The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) works with partners to build the competitiveness of our region’s businesses, people and places – vital ingredients of renewed economic growth. The Northwest is home to a number of major, world-class industrial laboratories, with total business investment on Research and Development (R&D) reaching over £2.1 billion in 2009 alone. The NWDA supports R&D in the region in order to: • Make it easier for more companies to access the world-class R&D expertise within the region’s universities; • Help universities and research centres to commercialise their knowledge and research base; and • Encourage more private sector investment in the region to attract highly skilled jobs and people to the Northwest.
Key achievements for the Science Sector: Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus is now one of only two National Science Institution Campuses in the UK. The state-of-the-art facility is designed to attract science and technology-based businesses to the region. Daresbury Laboratory and the Cockcroft Institute are based at the Campus, and construction is now underway for Vanguard House, the next grow-on building on the site. To date, NWDA funding at the Campus has helped to create over 190 jobs, assisted 146 businesses and created 46 businesses. The National Biomanufacturing Centre is a product development and clinical manufacturing facility. It was established by the NWDA to provide resource and knowledge for life science companies and academic groups to bridge the gap between laboratory science and early stage clinical trials. Since opening in 2006, over 230 businesses have been assisted by the Centre. The Northwest is also Europe’s biggest biomanufacturing region and is one of only a handful of globally-recognised bioscience communities. It is the largest exporter of pharmaceuticals in the UK and has concentrated biomedical clusters in Liverpool, Manchester and Cheshire. The NWDA established the UK’s first Regional Science Council in 2002. The Council brings together the region’s universities, major blue chip companies, SMEs and research centres to set priorities and provide guidance to science and research across the region.
“Without the NWDA’s intervention and leadership, vital projects such as the development of Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and other facilities would not have happened.” John Stageman, Vice President for Global Sciences and Information, AstraZeneca
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Key projects supported by the NWDA to grow the regions’s Science Sector include: The new Centre for Nuclear Energy Technology, at the University of Manchester, aims to increase the capability of the university to collaborate with industry. It will support R&D in the nuclear sector’s reactor technology market and contribute £20 million to the Northwest economy over 10 years. Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is the world’s first medical institution dedicated to teaching the study of tropical diseases. £9 million NWDA investment helped to lever over $50 million of grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the School, which is now one of the world's leading institutions dedicated to developing treatments for infectious and tropical diseases such as malaria. The Composites Certification and Evaluation Centre, which will be part of the Northwest Composites Centre, will provide expertise and evaluation techniques to support businesses in the development of new composite products and manufacturing processes. NWDA funding will help to lever over £3.5 million investment from the University of Manchester and the private sector. The new Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) provides a cost effective method of creating virtual prototypes, which will help the competitiveness of businesses in the aerospace sector. The £30 million Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry (KCMC) helps businesses to harness the knowledge and expertise of the Northwest’s world-class research in applied materials chemistry. By bringing together specialisms from the region’s universities and research centres, the project will help to establish over 200 new business/academic collaborations. The Centre for Materials Discovery, incorporated under the umbrella of the KCMC, offers a high-tech manufacturing facility to pioneer the development and discovery of new materials. To date, 70 businesses have been assisted and 85 jobs created or safeguarded. Liverpool Science Park offers over 8,000 sq m of new workspace to accommodate high technology and knowledgebased businesses. To date, the Park is home to 24 businesses and it is expected that approximately 200 new jobs will be created by 2015. The Northwest Science Fund has funded six projects to help the region pioneer university/industry partnerships, speeding up the transfer of scientific discoveries into world-class commercial products. One of the projects was the Northwest Laser Engineering Consortium, combining the expertise of both Liverpool and Manchester universities to research and develop laser capabilities for use in key growth sectors, particularly advanced engineering.
Renaissance House, Centre Park, Warrington, WA1 1QN Tel: +44 (0)1925 400 100 Fax: +44 (0)1925 400 400 www.nwda.co.uk May 2010 NWDA k4-34