Examination of Witnesses (Questions 789
- 799)
TUESDAY 18 MAY 2004
NORTH EAST
WALES INSTITUTE
Q789 Chairman: Good morning and welcome
to the committee. You should be welcoming us, of course.
Professor Thomas: Welcome to NEWI.
Q790 Chairman: We are very pleased
to be in the North East Wales Institute and we are grateful for
the posting of the committee session here. This is not a grilling
session. It is an evidence gathering session and I hope that we
can find out what we want to know about the relationship between
manufacturing and academia, which we all acknowledge needs to
be enhanced. Could you begin by introducing yourselves for the
sake of the record please?
Professor Thomas: My name is Professor
Michael Thomas. I am the Academic Director for the Faculty of
Medical Education, Health, Sports Exercise and Sciences, and the
sciences include biochemistry and genetics.
Mr Howard: My name is Greg Howard
and I am Head of Enterprise Development which involves entrepreneurship,
innovation and intellectual property.
Mr Tatler: My name is Joe Tatler.
I am Head of Engineering at NEWI here. I have been Head of Engineering
for a year.
Q791 Chairman: Thank you very much.
In the paper that we had from the North East Wales Institute you
set out the strategic aims of the Institute in relation to entrepreneurship
and innovation. Is there a funding tension in the present funding
regime between the desire to recruit staff to achieve the aims
of networking with industry and the promotion of entrepreneurship
and the need to recruit academic staff, which is what your normal
function would be?
Professor Thomas: My response
to that would be yes, there is a tension between the funding mechanisms
at the moment on three different levels. There is the HEFCE funding
for the students themselves, which has a ceiling limit and it
is very difficult to lift that limit, so straightaway if you reach
that limit you have to put in for new student places. Secondly,
there is a funding issue to do with research. It seems to be a
Welsh issue. We have three A's here for chemistry in conjunction
with Bangor and, as you are probably well aware, that money now
ceases and yet there are still five years left until the next
assessment exercise in which we have to find those resources.
Then there is funding with the bid pots that we have to do for
links with external agencies in terms of entrepreneurship, CEP
bids, for instance, and the fact that we have to put a bid in
for them. There is never a feeling that you can have an investment
plan because you do not know where the next pot of money is coming
from.
Q792 Chairman: So there is clearly
a problem of funding.
Mr Howard: I would support that
quite strongly. We have had quite a few examples of difficulties
in recruiting academic staff, for example, in the Careers, Head
of Marketing position, business development managers and e-learning
network manager, and we had a false start as well with the Director
of Entrepreneurship. It is a funding gap that Professor Thomas
relates to about the core funding and the bidding funding; it
is a real problem for us. A smaller institution like NEWI could
do with some core funding to help us become, as Professor Thomas
says, more sustainable. Also there is a KTP issue hiding there,
which is that 30% of the KTP funds are now—
Q793 Chairman: KTP?
Mr Howard: Knowledge Transfer
Partnership. This is a government funded scheme that is quite
an interesting instrument for us to engage academia with industry.
There is a proposal that 30% of that funding will be going to
five and five-star departments, which of course would be a real
problem for us, so we have got this sustainability issue, the
possibility of funding issues on a whole range of initiatives,
and the dual funding for HEFCW and research councils on the research
side is something else which you might consider discussing later.
Q794 Chairman: You did mention that
you have a problem with recruitment. Is that a problem of finance
again or is it a problem of getting suitable individuals?
Mr Howard: It is partly finance
but it is also partly individuals. For example, we had 12 applicants
for two business manager posts. We had the false starts that I
mentioned. Four people applied for an e-learning network manager
post, which was quite critical to a major project for Community
of University of North Wales (CUNW). That is an 11-partner collaboration
in e-learning, quite an exciting project, and there are two more
in South Wales. It is partly funding and it is partly finding
the best people for the posts.
Q795 Chairman: You also highlight
on page eight of the paper NEWI Innovation Ltd. Can you explain
how this works?
Mr Howard: It is a privately set
up company of limited liability status and it gives us a commercial
vehicle to set up a whole range of initiatives like contract research,
consultancy, equipment testing and other things. It is quite an
innovative venture that has been launched in a few universities,
as you probably know. We combine the academic expertise with the
student new starts and we think it is a fantastic programme. We
have four companies in there focusing on the digital media sector
and they, for example, are involved in computer games design,
digital communications with people like Granada and two other
companies, so it is an exciting time for us.
Q796 Chairman: Do you have a standard
contract which would give some money back to the Institute if
there were profits generated from it?
Mr Howard: Yes. We spent two years
looking at policy development at NEWI from costing and pricing
to incentives of policies to how we share intellectual property,
so we do have a mechanism to try and reward academics. We know
the best institutions in the UK are the ones that reward individuals
and that is currently being reviewed by the Director of Entrepreneurship
as well, so we are finalising those details after quite a vigorous
period of consulting and preparing.
Q797 Mr Caton: In your written submission
you point out that the NEWI Innovation Centre has been developed
to "provide fledgling business incubator space for up to
seven businesses". Does the centre work on similar lines
to the Technium projects that are being developed in various parts
of Wales?
Mr Howard: Yes, we are aware of
the Aquaculture Technium projects in South Wales, for example,
the digital media and optic culture, and in North Wales in cast
and Optic Techniums. We put the companies in and we give them
that fledgling nurturing early support which they need to get
a good start. We have not at the moment got people like the Inland
Revenue and accountants in there giving support but we would like
to work towards that. At the moment it is academic support, it
is computer access, it is access to our knowledge with the academics,
help with business plans, strategic plans and finance. It is not
quite as robust, I would say, as the Techniums which have a lot
more support in them but we are working towards it. There are
other universities that are, to be honest, a little behind us
in that way. They would like to set them up but they have not
yet, so we are quite proud of that accomplishment.
Q798 Mr Caton: Is NEWI involved with
any Technium projects?
Mr Howard: We have some confidential
dealings going on at the moment with one in particular which we
would like to tell you about but we are signing contracts now,
so if you could bear with us we will announce that shortly. Yes,
we have some involvement and we are quite excited about it.
Q799 Mr Caton: Watch this space?
Mr Howard: Yes.
Professor Thomas: There are two
other bids that have gone in as well. Out of the two if one is
successful we will probably move that bid into the Technium area.
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