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West & North Yorkshire Business
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BRADFORD NEWS
Contacts, connections and communities While you will read in this magazine about some of the good news stories that have happened recently, there will always be other information and developments that will come via other channels, such as social media and that other muchforgotten pastime, in-person networking. It’s great that most of us are now back seeing each other face-to-face and catching up the oldfashioned way – and also being able to go into the office again. Who ever thought that we’d be making such a fuss about that? Staff populating city centre offices plays its part in assisting with the post-Covid recovery, especially in a place like Bradford, where the retail and hospitality offer doesn’t match that of some of our other urban town and city centres in West & North Yorkshire. I feel it’s important to keep that in mind if we are to play our part in boosting the economy. I’m delighted to report that Bradford Manufacturing Weeks was once again a great success – as well as providing lots of events to demonstrate great career opportunities, this annual initiative connects schools to local manufacturing businesses and vice versa – there’s more about BMW in this edition. Other ‘reasons to be cheerful’ include the latest economic survey report (again, more included in this edition) that shows demand is rising – yes, that’s bringing with it its own challenges, as many of us will be experiencing; and also Bradford has made the cut onto the short list for UK City of Culture 2025 – fingers crossed on that one. As ever, being in business brings opportunities and challenges but I hope that you will agree with me that we wouldn’t have it any other way. Victoria Wainwright President Bradford Chamber
University’s high-tech NMR scanner used to help local firms Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across Yorkshire will benefit from access to advanced scientific equipment, housed at the University of Bradford, to create new, and improve existing products, thanks to a £550,000 grant extension from the EU. Current projects include analysis of compostable plastic bags, bio-resorbable medical implants, polymers used in secure bank notes and interrogation of drug delivery technologies for the treatment of Covid. The work is funded by Project CAYMAN (Chemistry Assets for Yorkshire Manufacturing), which began in 2019 with a £1.6m grant (jointly funded by European Regional Development Fund and the University). The original project was due to end in October 2022 but has now been extended until June 2023. Dr Richard Telford, Director of the University’s Centre for Chemical and Biological Analysis, said the money would enable them to buy three new pieces of equipment to expand their current offering. “We currently use our NMR instrument to carry out detailed analysis of materials used in manufacturing a variety of products. The NMR machines are specialised pieces of equipment which are regularly used by large companies such as those in ‘Big Pharma’, but because of their cost, they would not normally be accessible to SMEs. “Project CAYMAN has established itself very successfully, delivering assistance in analytical projects to Leeds City Region SMEs in the materials and polymer sectors. These successful interactions have revealed that a broader offer of assistance using instruments to interrogate surface properties of materials would be of great benefit in addition to the original scope. We applied to ERDF to extend and expand the project in September and our request has now been approved.” He added: “This new funding means we can invest in three new high value scientific instruments to study the surface properties of materials and work with a broader set of scientific companies, particularly in engineering-focused sectors.”
