The Cambridge Network Blog: Technology & Innovation Centres in Cambridge

This week has been hectic as the Local Enterprise Partnership and Technology & Innovation Centres initiatives get underway and we speak up for the Cambridge high tech cluster in the new political order.

On Tuesday night we had a meeting to discuss the future of Policy research locally, to try to create an equivalent to our wonderful Silicon Fen called Policy Fen. All day Wednesday we facilitated sessions with local counsellors and businesses from Peterborough, Kings Lynn, Huntingdon and Cambridge to establish priorities for investments we need to bring jobs and economic growth to the sub-region. And today we met with AstraZeneca (Medimmune), John Innes (Norwich), Genzyme, Goodman (Colworth, Harwell), GSK (Stevenage), Marshall of Cambridge, Microsoft Research, TWI, and Unilever to co-ordinate our bids for Technology & Innovation Centres to drive skills and export growth for the UK from our region.

Andrew Herbert (Microsoft Research), Ken Wood (Microsoft Research), Roger Leech (Unilever), Sue Dunkerton (TWI), Pete McDonnell (Genzyme), Henk Koopmans (EEDA), Rob Cooke (GSK), Sally Ann Forsyth (Goodman), Jane Osbourn (AstraZeneca (Medimmune)), Lucy Kemp (EEDA), Jon Green (AstraZeneca (Medimmune)), Cathy Prescott (Biolatris), Jeanette Walker (lets cell it), Matt Schofield (Cambridge Network), Alan Giles (John Innes), Sir Michael Marshall (Marshalls of Cambridge), Hermann Hauser (Amadeus), John Cummins (visiting researcher University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing)

Hermann started by pointing out that units like Bell Labs are in short supply in the UK. They invented the transistor and the mobile phone, yet AT&T closed their equivalent unit in Cambridge in 2002 (despite it having created the broadband mobile phone, RealVNC, Ubisense, and Virata and having made 100s of its former employees millionaires). Hermann quickly corrected himself to say that translation labs are dead in UK aside from Microsoft Research, whose Chairman EMEA was hosting. "Yes, I am the last of the racing dinosaurs!" responded Andy Herbert, modestly ;~)

I learned later from Andy that it takes about £20M p.a. to run a unit like his, and that may explain why we don't have many in the UK now. R&D is mostly done in the homeland, since most multinationals are led by nationals of their original country (Anglo-Dutch organizations like Shell, Unilever are notable exceptions to this general rule). We have very few native organizations left that lead R&D in their sectors globally - except for a few pharmaceuticals (AstraZeneca, GSK, Pfizer...) energy (BP, Shell...) and defence players (BAE,...). Andy is probably the most influential chap in Microsoft who is not a US citizen, but there are few other US R&D giants who are convinced to value Britain that highly (respect to Bill Gates for bucking the trend, but as we all know he is a thoroughly charitable soul). As "national champions" like BT are cutting back on centres like AdAstral Park, we shouldn't be surprised that overseas investors like Alcatel Lucent do the same with their units here. We have to show how R&D done here in the UK changes global products if we want this kind of work.

So why now? Hauser thinks there is too much time wasted after discovery, and we are going to lose our key innovators to countries like Germany that give Spitzencluster subsidies to attract this kind of work. We have many subcritical units due to regional governments with overlapping ambitions and no real world-class research lead. The UK has 22 centres for nanotechnology, when we should have 2. Technology and Innovation Centres will only be one of many potential levers, the most effective of which is government's buying power. Hermann thinks procurement by DARPA created Silicon Valley. Actually, I've read academic papers which say that DARPA and DOD funding is a very good predictor globally of hi tech activity, and explains 85% of hi tech clusters. So much for something in the water in Cambridge ;-) We just happened to be the unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US Army bombers to take off from in the last war. So let's head down to the Eagle and toast the Yanks, Canucks and other boys who flew all those years ago. Hauser thinks UK plc should give £200m (0.1% of government procurement spend) to TSB to do best value for money procurement over 10 year timescale - rather than just buying the cheapest thing available each time.

Our Maxwell centres will be different from the Fraunhofers in Germany, where industry is dominated by automotive. German heavy industry contrasts strongly with our service-oriented economy. They have maintained it very well, while we have exited industry after industry as Asian competitors became stronger. They recovered miraculously from the last war: despite our conflict in the air, assisted by the Yanks, Canucks and even the plundering Russkies, most of the German plant (80%) and particularly the machine tools industry (93.5%) remained intact. Their success in rebuilding so quickly drove Europe's quick recovery under the more comforting rain of Marshall Plan goods from 1947-1951 (30% increase in European GDP) which provided 14% of the income of Hermann's Austrian homeland at that time. (Read "Postwar" by Judt if you want to understand our current state). But clearly Anglo-Saxon commercial values differ from German industrial philosophy, and so our Maxwells should match our style.

The key thing is to have 2 or 3 industrial backers for each Maxwell centre. If income is roughly 40% government, 30% academic and 30% industrial we need £6M p.a. in industry income for each Maxwell/Technology Innovation Centre we want to create. Even if Cambridge has brilliantly distinctive ideas, unless we can show a way to turn those into industry income quickly they should stay as research projects. That is our next job. If anybody has a lead to major industrial customers who will want to buy the Cambridge ideas that should be changing the world in 10 years - we'd love to hear!! ;-)

PS We did also have a really good Healthcare event in the Addenbrookes Board Room on Health records, privacy and social networks too. Lots of nice members turned out and stayed around to chat (healthUnlocked, Judge, Linguamatics, Mills & Reeve, Napp, NHS, PA, Patients Know Best, PHG, Philips, Sagentia, University of Cambridge, Wellcome Trust Sanger etc) and we had fun. Its been hectic, as I said above ;-)

PPS We do know a few organizations through having run the Corporate Gateway over the years. Below some folk we will be chasing up - but obviously warm leads in these places are also very welcome:

ABB
Air Products
Alice Ventures
Apple
BASF
BHP Billiton
Boeing
Boots
BP
British Oxygen
BT
De La Rue
Deutsche Telekom
Dimplex
DoCoMo
DuPont
Eastman
Egg
Ericsson
Fujifilm Sericol
Gerber Technology
Giesecke & Devrient
Google
GSK
Hilti Corporation
IBM
ICI Image Data
Index Ventures
Infosys
Itochu
JETRO
Kaneka
Kodak
Merck-Serono
Microsoft
Morphy Richards
Nokia
NXP Semiconductors
O2
Osaka Gas
Pepsico
Philips
Procter & Gamble
Qualcomm
Reckitt Benckiser
Rio Tinto
Rohde & Schwarz
Rusnano
Samsung
Sanyo
Schneider
Siemens
SLS Venture
Smith & Nephew
Sondex
Sony
Takeda
Tata
Thales
Dow Chemical
Unilever
WL Gore
World Energy Solutions
Yorkshire Water