26 . Glasgow Business January/February 2013
strategic global marketing is undertaken as a priority.
What role can the Green Investment Bank play?
Te Green Investment Bank (GIB) has been established to commit up to £3 billion of investment to accelerate the growth and deployment of low carbon technologies and projects. Some of that will be focused on offshore renewables, but it also addresses low carbon, sustainability and environmental technology industries and related “shovel ready” projects which will potentially decarbonise our cities. Te prospect of driving the
Smart Cities agenda in Glasgow will be a fantastic opportunity for engineering and technology to help integrate the built environment in the city, transport logistics, “decarbonising” buildings, creating a basis for advanced informatics and sensing, and establishing what we might call a “city observatory” which would allow Glasgow to be genuinely at the forefront of city strategies and thinking around the world. Te GIB will look to accelerate
some of these programmes, and we shouldn’t ignore the fact that at one end of the M8 in Edinburgh we have the leadership of the GIB and at the other end, here in Glasgow, we’ve had established in 2012 the HQ of the new UK Technology Strategy Board- funded Catapult Centre for Offshore Renewable Energy. So what we’re seeing here in Scotland is low-carbon technology leadership, policy leadership and potential financial leadership in terms of investment decision making. Our low-carbon industry hub
is clearly in and around Glasgow. What we now need to do is exploit that in terms of major infrastructure investment, the creation and exploitation of knowhow, but also positioning Glasgow as a “Future City”, which will be based around a low-carbon economy, but which will also touch health, transport and energy systems and related economic growth opportunities.
Which companies are the University of Strathclyde currently engaging with, and on what?
We are very proud of the partner company base we currently have. Tis includes the Weir Group –
Professor Sir Jim McDonald
“Our low-carbon industry hub is clearly in and around Glasgow. What we now need to do is exploit that”
working on advanced pumping technologies for global engineering and energy markets, as well as working on executive education, graduate recruitment, student sponsorship and internships. Scotish Power and SSE are engaged in “smart grid” projects and off-shore renewables programmes. Our renewables work is also
Investment Bank
bit.ly/RT0Fgv
Green
Duval. In addition to these global companies, Scotish Enterprise has been a very active partner, and it has been making major infrastructure and facilities investments such as in our world-
leading Advanced Forming Research Centre – located
sponsored by Gamesa, Technip, the Wood Group and David Brown Gears among others. If we broaden that out to pharmaceutical manufacturing, we have, as previously mentioned, Astra Zeneca, GSK and Novartis. In aerospace technologies we
work with Boeing, Rolls-Royce and a cluster of other “tier 1” partners including TIMET, Barnes Aerospace and Aubert
at Glasgow Airport – and the new Power Network Demonstration Centre – addressing smart grid technologies with companies including GE and Alstom. We also engage strongly with
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across several sectors, including Clyde Space, a highly innovative satellite technology company, and we use the UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programmes as an effective means to support SME innovation and product development.
How important have the Glasgow Economic Commission and the subsequent Glasgow Economic Leadership Board been to the engineering sector?
Te Glasgow Economic Leadership Board has very senior members, but it also has Work Streams chaired by equally senior members of industry – in life sciences, low-carbon technologies, advanced engineering manufacturing and design, tourism and events and higher education. Tey are all led by executive-
level people. In the engineering stream, there has been co- ordination of companies from energy, aerospace, defence, microelectronics and so on, recognising some common challenges, not the least of which is skills, where they are now taking a combined sectoral view on how they develop skills to create a population of science, engineering and technology people for the future of Glasgow. Tey have also identified a
common need for access to the innovation and research base in Glasgow, and are finding for the first time they have a collective voice which allows them to connect effectively with the city leadership. Tat same phenomenon has
been seen in life sciences, and that workstream is working very effectively, led by Kevin Moore and Professor Anna Dominiczak from Glasgow University. Tese are very driven and commited people, and that is terrific for Glasgow. Te board is not a “talking
shop”, it’s action led, it’s focused and it’s helping to establish industry clusters that didn’t previously exist. Tat in itself is a deliverable, and what we’re producing is a set of prioritised outcomes across these key sectors that will drive forward the Glasgow economy for the next generation. Glasgow has big ambitions
to be a sustainable city, to be a Future City, and we have a chance to be in the leadership group for this globally. Te City Council is visionary about how it will achieve this, and works well with its industrial and academic partners. We’ve pitched Glasgow as the
European Green Capital for 2015 and recently myself and colleagues were in London supporting the City Council bid for a £24m fund to create a Future Cities
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