Glasgow Business . 23
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Why is engineering as important as ever to Glasgow?
I’d like to alter that question a litle, and say that engineering is more important than it has been to the city for the last 20 or 30 years. It’s really relevant to note that both the Scotish and UK governments, as well as the Glasgow Economic Leadership Board, are talking about reshaping our economy – and engineering, applied science and technology are now being seen as a means by which we can create jobs, serve new markets and create industries for the 21st century. If you look at what Glasgow
and its participants are involved in, we have world-leading academic capability in technological research and development. Tere are highly innovative companies, large and small, and we have real critical mass in shipbuilding, in advanced manufacturing, in sensors, in energy and renewables. When you aggregate across this asset base, Glasgow has an extraordinarily competitive engineering foundation, and our historic reputation for engineering excellence makes our current position all the more credible. In the city and nearby, we have
companies such as Te Weir Group, Aggreko, Allied Vehicles, Babcock, BAE Systems, Tales, the headquarters of ScotishPower, a major SSE centre, Wood Group, Clyde Blowers, Jacobs Engineering, Atkins, Rolls-Royce and many more. If you combine these organisations, you’re talking about a volume in the order of 10,000 professional engineers and technical staff. We must celebrate this so that each organisation can take pride and confidence from each other’s activities. What is obvious is that we have a real industrial “jewel in the crown”, and it is absolutely suited to the growing national and international growth strategies to reshape the economy.
How does the city’s current engineering sector differ from the past?
Te traditional engineering profile for Glasgow was heavy industries, and they’ve not gone. A lot of people talk about manufacturing having had its time and being lost to the Far East – but I disagree with that. In and around Glasgow, we have companies still engaged in manufacturing, and I’ve already
mentioned some of these. We have the skills and facilities that bode well for Glasgow’s international influence on design and advanced manufacturing. But we’re also now innovating
with the direct support of our universities, and Strathclyde has one of the biggest engineering faculties in Scotland. With our initiatives, such as the Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC), we are involved with high-value added manufacturing technologies with companies such as Rolls-Royce, who maintain a global lead because of their product innovation and the fact that they concentrate on high-end engineering solutions to manufacturing which keeps them ahead of low-cost competitors in other parts of the world. So what we have in Glasgow is
Professor Sir Jim McDonald “We have the skills and facilities that bode
well for Glasgow’s international influence on design and advanced manufacturing”
RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: Technology and Innovation Centre
Professor Sir Jim McDonald said: “The Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC – pictured on facing page) and its partner facility, the Industry Engagement Building – led by Scottish Enterprise – represent a combined £103 million investment. The building plan is on schedule, and it will be fully operational by the end of Q1-2014, but the collaborative industry research programmes have already started. While the building is springing up out of the ground, Strathclyde is already working with major corporate partners, and these programmes will migrate to the completed TIC building. An example of that is our work with the Weir Group on the next family of advanced pumps and fracking process pumps, helping Weir have the most efficient and effective pumps globally. “ScottishPower and SSE currently have major power/
energy research programmes under way through TIC, and the newly established Fraunhofer Centre is up and running, and that will also end up in the TIC building. We have major pharmaceutical manufacturing activity with GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Novartis – a £30m programme – and this will be located in the TIC building. “The TIC concept and investment has been very
exciting for the University and is part of the reason why we’ve been successful in attracting the Fraunhofer and the Catapult Centre into Glasgow, because it epitomises what the Scottish, UK and European governments are seeking. It’s a converged set of collaborations between business, academia and the policy makers to identify key areas where we have critical mass and the ability to grow jobs and industries.”
a degree of convergence in terms of heavy engineering, advanced process optimisation and sensing, and these give us a basis for looking at new industries, such as renewables and low carbon technologies. Trough all of this we’ve kept the very best of our traditional capabilities, but are now augmenting all of this with advanced modelling, simulation, sensors and soſtware and materials science. Given that there is an increasing need to take a multi-disciplinary approach to design and manufacturing, there are real opportunities for collaboration between our companies. It should be added that a
fantastic catalyst has been created, that both Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce can take credit for, through the original establishment
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