Building a bridge across the valley of death sounds like a tricky task. Even more so when you realise that the valley this bridge has to cross is the void between science and engineering research and the pot of gold that comes from commercialising it. In the UK, many great innovations have fallen into the valley, only to be fished out by other countries that create entire new industries from them.
Take the new material graphene as an example. Scientists discovered it in the laboratories of Manchester University to much fanfare, including a Nobel Prize and knighthoods. Within a year of the prize being awarded, the government invested £50 million to help commercialise the technology. Yet a recent report found that the UK has fallen well behind other nations at patenting applications of the technology. China, which tops the list in terms of number of graphene-related patents worldwide, has 40 times the level of UK patents.
The “valley of death” problem has been around for decades. “For a long time, successive governments have assumed that putting extra funding into academia will generate direct spin-offs through intellectual property and companies,” says David Connell, senior research fellow at the Business Research Centre, University of Cambridge. Although this can happen, it is not a straightforward process and can take time, he adds.
“There is a major gap in mission-driven research and development. The government in the UK underspends by about £4.5 billion a year compared with other economies.”
Most other advanced economies worldwide have innovation and technology centres to plug this gap, says Connell. This is something that the UK is now working towards.
In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron pledged more than £200 million for the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to set up a network of technology and innovation centres that could help translate the country’s world-class science into commercial successes.
The seven centres, known as “catapults”, will be up and running by the end of this year. Four are already established in the areas of high-value manufacturing and, most recently, cell therapy, offshore renewables and satellite applications. The other three – in future cities, connected digital economy and transport systems – are expected to come online soon.
The catapults are funded from three streams. One-third comes from the TSB, one-third from industry in exchange for use of a catapult’s services, and the rest from collaborative R&D grants chased by each centre and industry.
Each catapult covers an area that has a global market worth billions and where the UK already has capability, says Simon Edmonds, director of catapults at the TSB. “I don’t think this is picking winners. It’s helping already established industries become even better,” he says.
For Connell, this model is on the right track. “It is a step change compared with the approach that has been adopted since the 1970s,” he says. The UK could see significant impact from the catapults within the next five years, he adds.
This target is not too far off for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the first such centre to open in October 2011. The scheme comprises seven existing technology centres, some of which are backed by universities (see “Sevenfold skills base”, overleaf).
The centres are already making a difference, says Dick Elsy, chief executive of the catapult. In the first six months of operations, 430 businesses worked on 600 projects to scale up manufacturing to more commercial levels. “There is clear evidence that industry has been waiting for this type of support, to take the risk out of manufacturing scale-up and to start to embed some great new manufacturing technologies,” he says.
Take the development of new carbon-fibre technology for aircraft wings. Typically, this type of R&D would require investment in pilot facilities at full production scale, which is “no mean undertaking”, even for the big players and their suppliers.
“The beauty of the catapult programme is that, with government support, those full-scale facilities can be purchased and put into a facility such as the National Composites Centre in Bristol,” says Elsy. “The large companies and their entire supply chain can get together around that kit and machinery, and learn how to scale it up without the cost and risk of having an expensive piece of production machinery standing in the corner of the factory not being used all the time.”
Once the aerospace companies have honed their techniques, or even while they are still doing so, businesses from the automotive sector can use the same equipment, he says.
The model is proving successful. “Already, within the first 12 months, with every £1 of core funding we have from the TSB we are pulling in £1.50 of industry and collaborative R&D work. We are adding some real value for industry,” says Elsy.
Several of the centres within the High Value Manufacturing Catapult are already running out of space and looking to expand. Less than one year after it opened, the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry outgrew its 12,000m2 facilities, and in June last year put in an application to double its size. Within 18 months of opening its doors, the National Composites Centre also needed more space, and in February this year secured a £28 million grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to double its size.
The services of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult do not come for free, and there are concerns that small businesses may be priced out of the system. Not all the centres run the same payment models but essentially businesses can choose to pay as they go or become a member of a specific catapult centre. By becoming a member, businesses pay an annual fee that buys them a certain amount of time with the equipment, consulting time with engineers and access to a pool of intellectual property.
Membership is tiered across three levels, with the lowest level catering for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Membership numbers are exceeding targets, but there is still work to do to encourage small businesses into the catapult, says Andrew Peters, UK divisional director for Siemens drive technology and board member of the Manufacturing Technology Centre.
“The lower membership levels are typically in the order of about £30,000, which is a lot for a smaller SME,” he says. In addition, smaller companies may not be aware of the catapults and lack the resources to find out what they are and how to get involved in the way that a larger company could, adds Peters.
“In the UK, the small SMEs contribute about 80% of UK industry, so we have to get that working a bit better. If that happens, we will start to see SMEs forming part of the supply chain for bigger companies. They will start to innovate components, products and technologies and there will be a greater export opportunity for them.”
Allowing trade associations membership, that would then cover some of the association’s members, could be a way to get SMEs involved, suggests Peters.
Another initiative that could help comes from aerospace trade body ADS, which is working on a project to help smaller companies develop innovation activities. It is independent from the catapults, but it could encourage SMEs to use the centres. Known as the National Aerospace Technology Exploitation Programme, it is a combination of funding, collaborative research and development projects and expert mentoring.
“It may be that, as part of the programme, companies begin to use the facilities that are available at the catapults,” says Paul Everitt, chief executive of ADS. The catapults are still at an early stage and their focus has previously been on areas other than how they market themselves, he says. “But that is an area they are going to have to look at if they want to attract more SMEs,” he adds.
However, Elsy argues that there is evidence that SMEs are getting involved with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. Small businesses make up 70% of members of the Centre for Process Innovation at Wilton and Sedgefield, he says. But he is not willing to give the percentage of members that are small businesses across the entire catapult because there are “too many variables”. He adds that 1,600 SMEs have “engaged” with the catapult over the past two years.
Meanwhile, the TSB is looking hard at what SME engagement each catapult will have. Edmonds says that each will have a drop-in space that people can use, and websites will include an area for SMEs to get involved. The Satellite Applications Catapult will have an SME champion who specifically targets small firms, because this market is full of companies of this size, he adds.
For the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the issue to be tackled now is responding to the fast-moving environment, says Everitt. “It will have longer-term priorities, but ensuring that it can bring things forward, and work with industry in a way that keeps it alive and interesting, will be a challenge.” As for the catapults in general, another important area will be engaging at the European level to access and influence funding streams that are available in Europe, he says.
Edmonds says the biggest challenge for the catapults as a whole is to “make their mark on their sector”. The catapults are a new environment – a non-competing space where networks of people can collaborate. Bringing these people together, and making people aware of what a catapult can do, might prove tricky.
He adds: “We chose the leadership carefully so they can make an immediate impact. I’m confident these people are going to make inroads.” Successful catapults will become “extremely busy, extremely fast”, which in itself will pose problems, he adds.
As the existing catapults pick up speed, Edmonds will be turning his attention to the future of the network. He is already thinking about which areas of science and engineering need help crossing the “valley of death” next. Although he concedes that getting funding during the next spending review period might be difficult, he says the process needs to continue.
Sevenfold skills base
Each centre in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult focuses on a different manufacturing area:
- Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (University of Sheffield), South Yorkshire
- Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Universities of Manchester and Sheffield), South Yorkshire
- Manufacturing Technology Centre, Coventry
- Advanced Forming Research Centre (University of Strathclyde), Glasgow
- National Composites Centre (University of Bristol), Bristol
- Centre for Process Innovation, Wilton and Sedgefield
- Warwick Manufacturing Group (University of arwick), Coventry
Catapult boosts Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce is investing £160 million in a state-of-the-art engine disc manufacturing facility in Sunderland as a result of work at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in South Yorkshire, which is part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
The 18-month project has cut cycle time in half and doubled the productivity for machining fan discs and intermediate- and high-pressure turbine blades. These improvements were possible because the centre allows engineers to look at first principles, says Sam Turner, head of the process technology group at the AMRC.
This step change means it is competitive for Rolls-Royce to build the factory in the UK rather than elsewhere.