Examination of Witnesses (Questions 700
- 713)
MONDAY 10 MAY 2004
PROFESSOR DUC-TROUNG
PHAM
Q700 Albert Owen: What about air
services?
Professor Pham: I do not know
of flights.
Q701 Albert Owen: That is the point!
Do you think broadband is sufficient for the kind of information
that you need to send out and receive? Do you think broadband
throughout Wales is of a standard that is capable?
Professor Pham: I have not experienced
it myself but I have heard that it is not so good. In the near
future, we might experience it because my centre will be relocated.
We will probably move to an Objective 1 area, and there we might
not have access to our own JANET network, and we might then have
to use the BT broadband service—and then I will be able
to tell you!
Q702 Chairman: You may have problems
if our inquiry into broadband is anything to do with it! We do
have Objective 1 areas in North Wales as well.
Professor Pham: Sure.
Q703 Mr Caton: I am going to come
on to Government support for manufacturing and trade in Wales
in a moment. In your Objective 1 Superman project there are three
kinds of projects: the initial project, the development project
and the technology implementation project. Looking at the breakdown
across the different Objective 1 areas, there are clearly a lot
of initial projects, quite a number of technology and innovation
projects, but comparatively few development projects. When you
read what each of those projects mean, the development projects
to a layperson at least would seem to be the ones with the longest
term benefit for those industries. Do you expect more of the initial
projects to develop into development projects as this Objective
1 programme unrolls, or do you think that is unlikely?
Professor Pham: They describe
this process as a funnel. You start with a big number of initial
projects then go on to a smaller number of these medium-term projects;
and then a much smaller number of development projects. The development
projects absorb a lot of human resources, and that is why we cannot
have too many of those. But I would like to go back to the initial
projects. Some of them, although they are short, can have a big
impact. If a little company needs a bit of information to get
them through to the next stage, and you are able to provide it,
then that already has an effect. Some of these short-term projects
can be extremely useful. The advantages and benefits to companies
that we have recorded do not all come from the longer term projects.
Q704 Mr Caton: There are many local
authority areas where there are no development projects, according
to the information we have. Would you expect to see an increase?
I take your point that it is going to be much smaller than the
number of initial projects, but would you expect to see more development
projects in years ahead?
Professor Pham: We would like
that very much, yes, because the development projects are the
ones that will give us a bit of revenue. We would like that very
much, yes.
Q705 Mr Caton: Moving on to UK Government
support, in your paper you note that part of your funding comes
from the DTI via regional centres for the Manufacturing Excellence
Programme. Can you explain the aims of that funding and your experience
of working with the DTI on that programme?
Professor Pham: That programme
is a national programme. About three years ago the DTI set up
a national programme of networks of centres of excellence, regional
centres of manufacturing excellence. We bid for it and, together
with UWIC, we won the bid. UWIC is providing a day-to-day telephone
answering service to help companies with very, very short-term
inquiries. We won the part where we would act as a demonstrator
centre. We would demonstrate to companies in Wales the high technologies
that we have at our centre. That is the aim of our work. Working
with the DTI has been quite a good experience. Certainly the DTI
is large and there are sections where we have more close contact
than others, but the sections we have had contact with have been
reasonably good.
Q706 Mr Caton: Moving on with your
centre's relationship with the UK Government to the manufacturing
and trade sector in Wales, what additional assistance do you think
the UK Government could provide to manufacturing and trade in
Wales?
Professor Pham: This programme
that I have just mentioned is coming to an end next year. There
is talk about not continuing with it, or having the funding there
but it will not be allocated or earmarked for manufacturing. It
would be extremely useful for Wales if the programme could continue
and if funding was earmarked for manufacturing. Also, there are
programmes nationally in the field of micro manufacturing, micro
and nano technology. It would be very useful if Wales could benefit
from such a national programme. The DTI has launched the second
call under the micro and nano technologies programme. At the first
call we sent in a bid but we did not succeed. The scientific part
of it was fine, but the DTI queried our business case, and we
are now re-submitting. Wales did not win one bid last time, so
hopefully there will be more support for Wales.
Q707 Dr Francis: Moving on to Europe
and European links, your paper notes that your centre leads 50
centres of excellence in the field of advanced manufacturing across
the EU. Can you tell us something about these centres and where
they are based?
Professor Pham: Sure. I have the
whole list here and I will read a few out for you. In the UK we
have Oxford and Cambridge and Warwick Universities. They are part
of one of our networks. Newcastle and UMIST are also part of our
network. We have partners in France and many partners in Germany.
I do not know if you have heard of the Fraunhöfer Institutes.
There are three of the Fraunhöfer Institutes, and we aspire
to be one. We are as big as a Fraunhöfer Institute. Fraunhöfer
Institutes belong to a network of institutes funded by the Fraunhöfer
Foundation. They are private, not publicly owned. They do receive
public funding, but they receive a lot of funding from industry
and also their own foundation. They do a lot of work with industry.
The size of the smaller one is probably twice our size, so we
still have a way to go. There are some very famous ones in the
field of manufacturing, and they belong to our network. Let me
read out part of the list of partners. In Austria we have a partner,
which is a company; in the Czech Republic we have the Czech Institute,
the Technical University; in Finland we have VTT, which is one
of their very large public research organisations; in France we
have CITEM, which is a very large manufacturing research organisation,
then the university, and INRIA, one of the institutes in IT; in
Germany we have seven partners, including Schneider Electric;
in Greece we have a partner; in Ireland, we have Dublin City University;
in Italy we have two companies, including Fiat, and the University
of Naples; in Poland we have a research organisation; in Portugal
we have one, and also in Spain; in Netherlands we have PNO, and
so forth. We have a lot of organisations.
Q708 Dr Francis: I notice that you
have some new Member States there.
Professor Pham: Yes.
Q709 Dr Francis: What impact do you
think European enlargement will have on your work?
Professor Pham: We will have more
partners to work with. They will be partners who will be more
willing to associate with us. It is all like a club. We were quite
new in the field of European research. In 1992 we had our first
European contracts, and since that time we have built up a network
of friends and partners. With the new countries, we will have
more partners to work with. One of our aims is to double the number
of partners.
Q710 Dr Francis: Can you describe
the benefits you have derived from these European links?
Professor Pham: The first benefit
is that we have access to more expertise. The field of manufacturing
is extremely large, and no-one can cover it all, so we have expertise
in some areas but our partners abroad have expertise in other
areas, and we can share expertise with them. The second benefit
is that we have access to funding, which is very important. We
also get to work with people from different cultures, and in this
way we become better Europeans. Those are the main benefits.
Q711 Dr Francis: Are those European
links and benefits more important than the links beyond Europe?
Professor Pham: We do have links
beyond Europe, yes. We work with people in America, in Korea and
China. At the moment, though, there is funding to work with people
in Europe, so we concentrate on that part of it. We definitely
do not rule out working with other people. Our partnership policy
is very inclusive.
Q712 Dr Francis: Given your world-wide
experience, this is not a comment about you, but are your colleagues
pleasantly surprised—this is an ethnocentric question really—by
what they derive from the European enlargement and the new emergent
States?
Professor Pham: That has not had
an impact yet on our activities, apart from the fact that a few
new countries have joined our network. The effects have yet to
come.
Q713 Chairman: I wondered why you
personally chose to come to Wales. As Dr Francis says, you could
not have been further away, in New Zealand and then in Birmingham.
Why did you see the advantages for yourself, and presumably for
Wales with the benefit of your experience?
Professor Pham: First, there was
this job opportunity. I was appointed to my Chair. I was 36 at
that time. But I had been to Wales before. I had visited Cardiff
and I loved the city, and I had some very good Welsh friends.
In fact, my former head of department at Birmingham was Welsh,
Bob Davies. They are very friendly people in Wales, he said, so
I was very interested, and when the opportunity arose I grabbed
it with both hands.
Chairman: That is nice to know. Thank
you very much for answering questions.
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