Glasgow Business . 25 www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com


Professor Sir Jim McDonald


“One of the big attractions for companies involved in the engineering sectors is the skilled workforce that we can create “


What big-ticket opportunities are available in these sectors?


Te Scotish Government’s policy to create the equivalent of 100 per cent of our electrical energy from renewables by 2020 is a very challenging policy position, but it also creates a global market opportunity and interest in deploying offshore wind devices in particular, but also in accelerating marine technologies such as wave and tidal. Tis is one of the big-ticket


opportunities for the UK, Europe and globally with the market opportunity estimated in the trillions of dollars. It’s an international race, and Glasgow and Scotland are in the vanguard. We need to be absolutely focused on public sector collaboration and facilitation, on private sector investment and innovation, and on our universities driving research outcomes and producing highly skilled people alongside those from schools and colleges required to populate these industries. Tis is vital, because one of the


big atractions for companies involved in the engineering sectors is the skilled workforce that we can create in and around Glasgow. In partnership with industry,


What we’re realising now is


that, with ScotishPower, SSE, Wood Group, Gamesa, and companies such as Jacobs, Atkins and others, we’re actually atracting major low-carbon companies and manufacturers into the city. In combination with this, the effective “triple helix combination” of public sector investment and policy encouragement, private sector leadership and innovation and business critical mass, coupled with the research capabilities in our universities – in particular the power and energy activity under way at the University of Strathclyde – is creating an


enormously atractive “engineering environment” in Glasgow. Tis environment includes basic research – and its various sectoral applications – through to the creation of new jobs. We can also satisfy a global market for wind and marine energy, for Smart Grid technologies and new manufacturing techniques for low-carbon devices. So the next decade will be


definitive for Glasgow to position itself as it did more than 100 years ago as a global leader in particular engineering sectors, and this will include advanced manufacturing and renewables.


Strathclyde is working with the city’s colleges, Skills Development Scotland and the Scotish Funding Council to create a new Engineering Academy (see panel leſt), which is going to increase our current annual cohort of about 1,000 graduate engineers by about 50 per cent, working in response to direct demand statements from industry. Te opportunity here is to capture a disproportionately large share of the global low-carbon industry market and to create a world-class skills base at the same time. Te same is true for naval


architecture and ship design with companies such as BAE Systems and Babcock on the River Clyde.


Tese major corporates are introducing innovation in the naval vessels and systems that they’re building right now. Tis brings enormous potential to reinvigorate what might have been seen as a traditional industry and driving that forward into the next decade. Similarly, in health


technologies, there’s a real opportunity for us to build on the work undertaken at Glasgow University’s excellent School of Medicine to create a clinical research facility at the European- leading new Southern General Hospital, which is being created with an investment of about £1 billion. When coupled with the new


Government energy policies bit.ly/UwpKkD


Health Technologies Institute at Strathclyde – working on medical devices, bioengineering, accelerated drug discovery, robotic surgery and imaging – this can act as a basis for growing an innovative industry


cluster around medical and health technologies


on the south side of the river. More widely, Europe is


recognising what’s going on the city. Fraunhofer Gesselschaſt, Europe’s largest application- oriented research organisation, established its first and only UK Centre here in Glasgow in 2012. It’s at Strathclyde and is working on the next generation of photonics and laser technologies with defence, aerospace and marine companies. One of the most important


things that Glasgow needs to do is communicate confidently and effectively the message to the world that Glasgow has unique capabilities, industrial critical mass and ambitions that are really building momentum in the engineering and technology space. Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau and Scotish Development International have an important part to play – in partnership – to ensure this


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