NEWS
R&D FUNDING UKRI rolls out
COMMENT
Made smarter
Nigel Smith | managing director, TM Robotics
The Made Smarter Review, the former Industrial Digitalisation Review, answers government calls to boost productivity in the UK’s manufacturing sector. Published in October 2017, it sets out recommendations to help meet the UK’s goal to become a world leader in the Fourth Industrial Revolution by 2030. A key suggestion is to encourage investment in industrial
KATHRYN ROBERTS
To be launched in April, the new funding organisation UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will bring together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and the newly formed Research England. Led by Sir Mark Walport, above, UKRI should create a more integrated landscape for funding and for exploiting the UK research base. Its three objectives are to advance knowledge, deliver economic impact and make society healthier and more sustainable. ‘The creation of UKRI is coming at a time where we’re building on a very strong research base in the UK,’ commented ‘shadow UKRI’ senior strategy advisor Gemma Bridge, speaking at a recent Westminster Higher Education Forum. ‘The UK has the most productive research base in the G8 in terms of papers and citations per unit of R&D expenditure and ranks first among comparable major research nations for Field Weighted Citations Impact and fifth in the Global Innovation Index in 2017.’
International collaborations
are the key to its success, she said; 51.3% of UK articles in 2014 were internationally co-authored. UKRI will receive £110m for a new international collaboration fund from the £4.7bn allocated to R&D in the 2016 autumn statement. Kevin Baughan, deputy chief
executive of Innovate UK, said its mission will be largely unchanged. ‘We are there to accelerate UK economic growth through funding and connecting business-led innovation. The core of what we do fits very well with knowledge, economy and society.’
With the demise of the Higher Education Council for England (HEFCE), Research England ‘will have a lot of the DNA of HEFCE’ in funding English universities, explained Alice Frost, HEFCE head of knowledge exchange policy. It will also work with the Department for Education’s Office for Students to ensure a supply of STEM graduates and in deciding how Research England funds knowledge exchange through Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF). A big advantage of being part of UKRI, she said, is that there is now more money for university research. As part of its Industrial Strategy, the government is increasing HEIF’s annual budget from £160m to £250m. In addition, Research England expects some money from the National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF) for ‘commercialisation and working with business’, and there will be an additional one-off £100m allocated to a Connecting Capability Fund for three years to help universities deliver on commercialisation by working collaboratively.
technologies. The review found that a greater uptake of industrial digitalisation technologies (IDTs) could represent as much as £455bn growth for manufacturing in the next decade, creating 175,000 jobs and increasing productivity by 25%; however, the review has been met with some criticism. Despite leading the first industrial revolution, the UK
has always had an unusual relationship with automation. Even today, much of the media coverage focuses on the threat that automation poses to jobs, as opposed to the productivity benefits. Studies suggest that automation could affect one in five jobs in the UK, but, that doesn’t necessarily mean technology will replace human workers. There have been plenty of efforts to highlight the
advantages of the technology, like the comments made by Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, in the report from the Future of Work Commission. Despite this, negative headlines continue. As a distributor of industrial robots, we have a vested interest in UK manufacturers and their investment in industrial automation; however, that’s not the only reason we’re backing the review. Inside and outside the factory there are already around 6.4bn data-communicating objects — and this number is growing exponentially. Innovations in fields like AI, software and robotics are all individually significant to UK productivity; however, it’s how manufacturers choose to use these technologies that will really set the UK on the path to reaffirming itself as a worldwide industrial leader. Not every manufacturer needs a fully automated factory, nor is it essential to invest in additive manufacturing, cutting-edge software or embark on an entire system overhaul to make a factory ‘smart’. According to our Global Robotics Report, 55% of distributors stated that the dawn of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution is influencing how customers choose industrial robots. But should investments be made according to an industry trend? There’s no denying that investments in automation can
reap incredible rewards, but it is vital that manufacturers are investing in the right kind of technology, not just the shiniest toy at the trade show.
gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/655570/20171027_MadeSmarter_FINAL_DIGITAL.pdf
02 | 2018 11
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
