Focus on innovation skills following £2.5m funding pledge

More than £2.5m of funding has been pledged to scale up innovation skills and outreach programmes in Liverpool over the next five years.

The investment is from Knowledge Quarter Liverpool (KQ Liverpool), which will inject £1.26m into the scheme, a sum matched by funding from the city region’s Innovation Zone.

The initiative will also bring forward new partnership programmes to target underprivileged communities and address issues around digital barriers, social mobility and access to opportunities in careers such as health and life sciences and advanced manufacturing.

The series of programmes will be part of a skills and innovation testbed designed to benefit the entire city region and improve outcomes for local communities by creating pathways into innovation. It will also support the creation of new traineeships to help kick-start science and tech careers.

The skills and outreach programmes will focus on supporting students to develop greater work-readiness, behaviours and soft skills, while connecting the curriculum to local initiatives and employers.

Students from local schools will also take part in activities at institutions across KQ Liverpool innovation district, including live venom extractions at the Snakebite Research Centre within Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, hands-on robotic demonstrations at Manufacturing Technology Centre at Liverpool Science Park, and immersive VR demonstrations at the Digital Innovation Factory.

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: “With up to £800m of investment and thousands of quality, high skilled jobs on offer, the Liverpool City Region’s Innovation Zone is an important tool in our arsenal to position ourselves at the head of UK science and innovation. But to take advantage of the jobs that it will create, we have to make sure that local people have the skills to get them.

“In our area we’re proud to do things differently. Throughout the development of our Innovation Zone, I have been clear that we need to deliver more than purely financial incentives. We have to use this status as a force for good, to connect our residents up to secure, well-paid jobs and training opportunities, and attract transformational investment into our communities.”

Cllr Nick Small, Cabinet Member for City Development at Liverpool City Council, said: “KQ Liverpool is home to some of the world’s most influential players in science, technology, health, culture and education.

“Within that ecosystem is a huge spectrum of skills and career opportunities that should be available to anyone with aspirations in this sector and our outreach programmes reflect our focus on developing these skills within our young people.”

He added: “Our existing Future Innovators Programme has already welcomed dozens of young people and we are incredibly excited to scale up those efforts and roll out a series of new programmes across a wide variety of institutions to share the many experiences and pathways available within our innovation district.”