Industry needs to be ahead of the curve on skills vice chancellor tells MPs
THE development of skills needs to be at the forefront of any new industrial strategy, Coventry University’s vice-chancellor has told an influential body of MPs.
Professor John Latham was speaking at the Commons’ cross-party committee for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Invited to give evidence in his role as chair of University Alliance, Prof Latham told the MPs that the skills agenda needed to be ahead of the curve, not following behind.
He said: “Universities must engage. We need to look at new programmes and new opportunities, for example, around apprenticeship degrees. A good industrial strategy will provide opportunities for generations not just the next few years.
“There is a need to work with industry and business to upskill the existing workforce. It’s not just about undergraduates and postgraduates being job-ready and employed. There is a bigger group already in work in whom universities can invest and upskill.
“The ‘faculty on the factory floor’ partnership between Coventry University and Unipart is one example of this. Our students are part of that working environment but we also have four research teams there. They help bring ideas and innovation to market more quickly and nimbly. The partnership helps upskill the wider workforce.”
Prof Latham said children also needed to be exposed to the workings of industry and business at a much younger age.
“Visits outside of school to see how business operates give young people ideas and inspiration. It’s in universities’ and businesses’ interests to capture those imaginations early,” he added.
On the wider needs of an industrial strategy, Prof Latham told the committee that while a national strategy was welcome, there needed to be a national and regional framework to make this happen.
“It has to be long-term, and understood within the UK and internationally. There’s a need to be clear about what we do, but also what we don’t. We can’t do everything to a truly world-leading standard and we have to focus down to get impact,” he said.
In response to questions from the committee around innovation and the role of science and research, Prof Latham said investment in innovation and research needed to be balanced.
“There is great value in adapting a product or making it better through innovation, not only creating new things through high-level research. Innovation is local. It starts in SMEs and in niche sectors. What a good industrial strategy needs is the assets and hubs across the UK to scale up those ideas,” he said.
Aside from MPs, the BEIS select committee also comprised Kevin Baughan, chief development officer, Innovate UK; Celia Caulcott, vice-provost (enterprise), University College London; and Sarah Main, director, Campaign for Science & Engineering.
Coventry University is a member of the West Midlands Combined Universities (WMCU – or University Alliance) and Midlands Enterprise Universities (MEU), both of which are lobbying to put skills, innovation and research at the heart of economic development in the Midlands.
