Download Case study: Cornwall

Can Universities Benefit Rural Communities?
Harnessing the opportunity for Universities to drive
smart specialisation in regional development
Dr Sue Brownlow
Director
Kernow
A Quick (Cornwall)
Reminder
A land shaped by the powerful seas of the
Atlantic
Communities shaped by land and sea
Culture rooted in an ancient past
Communities that celebrate new cultural
opportunities
A business base with the confidence to seek
global commercial markets
Statistically Speaking
It would be easy to simply give this picture of a
beautiful region, confident and full of opportunities
But this would not be a complete picture, and statistics
point to pressing needs and an economy still lagging
and lacking all the skills needed to help it grow and
catch up with the rest of the UK and Europe
Our Economic prosperity
measured by GDP per Capita
Our economic prosperity, measured per person, shows that we still
significantly lag the European average
29,000
UK average of £28,700 per capita
28,000
27,000
SW UK average of £26,100 per capita
26,000
25,000
UK
SW
Cwl l
EU average of £25,100 per capita
24,000
23,000
22,000
Ser i es1
Cornwall average of £18,700 per capita
21,000
20,000
19,000
18,000
17,000
35% below the UK average
25% below the EU average
Our Skills base
While our skill levels are up with National figures for levels one, two
and three, it is advanced skills where Cornwall shows the greatest
deficit
Percentage of working age population in 2008 with level 4+ skills
(graduate level)
UK overall has 29.9% Level 4+ skills
S. West UK has 29.2 % Level 4+ skills
30.00%
29.00%
28.00%
27.00%
26.00%
Cornwall averages 24.2% Level 4+ skills
25.00%
Ser i es1
24.00%
Cornwall lags the rest of the UK by
nearly 20%
23.00%
22.00%
21.00%
20.00%
UK
South West
Cor nwal l
That’s more than 15,000 graduates
missing from the workforce
Our Performance in Knowledge
Intensive Sectors (KIS)
• The Proportion of all employment in private sector KIS
is 17.9%, the second lowest of all the Local Enterprise
Partnership regions in the UK in June 2010
• At an annual growth rate of 45.5%, Cornwall has the
fastest rate of growth (half as much again as the next
fastest) in KIS of all the Local Enterprise Partnership
regions in June 2010
Our view in CUC is that they can
Can Universities Benefit
Rural Communities?
The previous two UNICREDS conferences
have started to define how geography,
community and politics contribute to shaping
the Higher Education driven economic
opportunities in any region
The UNICREDS model develops triple helix
thinking
A framework for CUC’s achievements
Triple Helix
UNIVERSITIES
A do-able
task for HE
UNIVERSITIES
delivery partners
Fits
with National
GOVERNMENT
and International
growth areas
Relevant
to the
INDUSTRY
local economy
INDUSTRY
GOVERNMENT
SMART specialisation
CUC’s JOURNEY
Objective One
Convergence
Building capacity
Smart
Specialisation
£100 million +
Investment into
general University
Infrastructure
Taking the risk
£100 million +
investment into
specialised
facilities for
helping the growth
of knowledge
intensive business
in Cornwall
Embedding the
benefits
GOVERNMENT
“we observe a definite tendency in Europe for
WARNING
countries and regions
to do the same thing and
envisage their future in a similar fashion……leaving
Europe with a collection of sub-critical systems, all
doing more or less the same thing”
“Government’s
challenge should not be to direct us in
what to do but to encourage us to discover what to do.
The search for SMART specialisation needs to come
through entrepreneurs, firms and universities”.
Dominique Foray, EURADA,
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
INDUSTRY/ PRIVATE SECTOR
The private sector in leading regions may have
the critical mass to set aims to be
inventive at the technological frontiers
in General Purpose Technologies
(for
example, such as biotechnology, information
technology, nanotechnology etc).
More likely, in remote, peripheral, economically
challenged regions such as those in partnership in
UNICREDS, our private sector will aim to invest in the
invention or development of applications of a
General Purpose Technology in the important domains
of our regional economies.
UNIVERSITIES
Initially there needs to be a certain degree of faith,
based on evidence of the past, that Universities and
Higher Education can provide a flexible basis for
providing original research and new knowledge that
can fuel new economic growth
When such an understanding has been reached and
Higher Education has been embedded in a region as an
economic growth driver, there needs to be a mutual
process of recognition (i.e. by the supply as well as the
demand) of the ability of HEI’s to perform in the
specialised domains emerging as priorities for the
regional economy.
A framework for CUC’s achievements
SMART
specialisation
UNIVERSITIES
A do-able task for HE
delivery partners
Fits with National
and International
growth areas
GOVERNMENT
Relevant to the
local economy
INDUSTRY
The following CUC examples illustrate how
Cornwall has harnessed the opportunity for
Universities to drive SMART specialisation
in its regional development utilising
• High Speed Internet information technology
• Renewable Energy technology
• Processes to help the private (and voluntary) sector
capitalise on graduate skills
High speed internet and Digital Media
One focus of University College
Falmouth is Digital Media
A small cluster of digital media
companies is already growing and are
supported in Cornwall with high speed
internet (Information Technology) as a
structural facilitator of further growth
Europe 2020 highlights “a digital agenda for Europe to speed up the roll out of
high speed internet” as one of its flagship targets and the new Cornwall Local
Enterprise Partnership which has evolved from The UK Government’s National
Reform Programme , has the development of high speed internet (Next
Generation Broadband) as one of its top priorities
Digital Media Skills at Shelterbox - video
Resource Efficient Europe and Wave Energy
One focus of The University of
Exeter’s new Environment and
Sustainability Institute is marine
renewable energy
A device (wave hub) has already
been deployed offshore from Cornwall
to focus and facilitate business growth
and supporting research &
development in the marine renewable
sector
Europe 2020 highlights “support for the shift towards a low carbon economy,
increase the use of renewable energy sources…” as one of its flagship targets
while Nationally, The South West Region of the UK has been designated as a
Low Carbon Economic Area for marine energy, as part of the UK's Low Carbon
Industrial Strategy.
Agenda for New Skills and Jobs and Unlocking
Cornish Potential
CUC Institutions work together through
the “Unlocking Cornish Potential”
scheme to match, place and support
skilled graduates in jobs in Cornwall
As part of the scheme, mentors are
employed from leading local enterprises
to ensure that knowledge is effectively
transferred into the local economy
Europe 2020 highlights the need to “modernise labour markets and empower
people by development of their skills …” and the UK Commission for
employment and skills “Ambition for 2020” report states “our prosperity depends
on the success of our economy. That depends on the jobs we are able to
create: and having the skilled workforce we need to do them – and do them well”
New Skills & Unlocking Cornish Potential at “Fifteen” - video
CONCLUSIONS
Can Universities benefit Regional economies?
Yes they can and having faith in this is the first step:
UNICREDS partners now have evidence to back this up, which wasn’t
available when we started out
What strategic approaches help us to achieve such benefits?
In terms of research and innovation, using SMART specialisation
is a way forward:
Find the specialisms where the local economy can respond to national and
EU high growth opportunities, and where HE growth is feasible and
sustainable
What are the caveats?
To achieve benefits requires:
mutual understanding of Business and Higher Education sectors
flexibility to deliver to local as well as national and EU priorities
Thank You
Meur ras
www.cuc.ac.uk