Driving the Local and Regional Economy
The University of Warwick is an entrepreneurial institution that has a significant impact on the local and regional economy. With 5,000 staff it is one of the largest employers in the sub-region and has an annual turnover of over £400 million. According to a report by Universities UK on the impact of the higher education sector on the UK economy, the University of Warwick is likely to have generated an additional 5,000 jobs in the local economy.
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The University of Warwick engages in a wide range of activities to ensure that local businesses benefit from the knowledge and research developed by academics. Services provided by the University to local and regional businesses include research and development, executive education, consultancy, and the provision of training and conference facilities: |
Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership
The University of Warwick is a full partner of the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CW LEP). The LEP’s priority is to grow the local economy, create jobs and increase the wealth of people in Coventry and Warwickshire. The University supports this programme by providing senior managers to serve on the Board of the LEP and its various sub-groups, where they contribute their expertise and specialist business knowledge.
Warwick Business School
Warwick Business School is in the top one per cent of global business schools, attracting students from 158 countries at undergraduate, Masters, MBA and PhD level. Teaching and research embrace management of public services as well as of the private sector, and the School’s position as a mainstream department of the University is an essential part of its culture, bringing with it excellent facilities and reputation.
WMG
Established in 1980 by Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, WMG at the University of Warwick is an academic department that occupies a unique position between academia and industry. It is internationally recognised for its cutting-edge research and knowledge transfer work with global companies, and has collaborative centres in the UK, India, China, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore and Thailand. Research teams are made up from a wide range of specialisms including engineers, physical scientists, materials scientists, mathematicians, designers, IT specialists, social scientists, economists, and knowledge transfer experts. WMG is a leading centre for world class management studies, offering unrivalled postgraduate and professional education programmes.
The dedicated SME Knowledge Exchange programme is designed to enable small businesses to innovate and bring user focused products to market. Through the International Digital Laboratory programme and the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation, the Knowledge Exchange Team offers expertise in a range of technologies and helps SMEs in the West Midlands gain competitive advantage from accessing WMG’s research base and wealth of expertise.
WMG is part of the first Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC), which focuses on high value manufacturing and is formed from a group of research and technology facilities from across the country. The new TIC draws on University research to accelerate the commercialism of new and emerging manufacturing technologies, forming part of an elite network of TICs in which the Government will invest over £200 million.
In 2011 WMG and Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Motors of India, celebrated their five year partnership at the University by showcasing collaborative research work in automotive technology. Tata Motors has invested over £85m in automotive R&D at TMETC since it was established at WMG in 2005, and brings together 240 engineers, with experience in automotive research, design and development, to work alongside WMG researchers in low carbon technology collaborative programmes.
Additionally, WMG has been awarded one of five new Industrial Doctorate Centres funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The centres will address fundamental engineering challenges in advanced manufacturing engineering, and the centre at WMG will focus on high value, low environmental impact manufacturing. The centres are designed to train Engineering Doctorate students and WMG will take on initial cohorts of ten participants per year, with the intention of expanding to a level of thirty new participants per year.
International Digital Laboratory
The Digital Laboratory is the first centre of its kind providing an accessible centre of innovation and excellence in digital technologies that serves the business, industrial, healthcare and educational needs of the West Midlands region and beyond. A multi-disciplinary research centre, it combines WMG’s expertise and underpins sciences including psychology, medicine, computer science and mathematics.
The Digital Laboratory uses the latest technology to create a platform for new collaboration to solve real world problems and to provide knowledge transfer, education and training. Several of WMG’s Masters Courses are delivered in the Laboratory, including e-Business Management and Enterprise Integration Management. SMEs in the West Midlands can access some of the expertise and leading-edge technology free of charge, and SMEs with modest R&D budgets can take that assistance further to develop bespoke solutions.
In 2010 Jaguar Land Rover started to relocate 170 members of its advanced research group to WMG, with the majority of these staff located at the Digital Laboratory. This is part of a strategy to further embed industrial R&D with academic excellence.
University of Warwick Science Park
The University of Warwick Science Park is one of the leading science parks in Europe and home to 60% of the fastest growing companies in Coventry and Warwickshire. It is an exclusive and high quality development, providing flexible office accommodation for knowledge and technology-based businesses developing or trading in innovative products and services, from new companies to SMEs and international companies.
With 150 companies employing around 2,000 staff, the Science Park delivers a range of business support services to organisations, providing assistance in start-up financing, technology transfer, networking opportunities, and marketing programmes for entrepreneurs and SMEs.
Warwick Ventures
Warwick Ventures Ltd is a subsidiary of the University of Warwick. Its mission is to commercialise the world-leading research of the University and to create new enterprises and products, which help to build the regional and national economy. Warwick Ventures works with many individuals and commercial partners who collaborate in product development; invest in its spin-out companies, and licence its wide-ranging technologies. Currently 30 spin-out companies, most of which remain located in the local area, have attracted £36 million of investment and have over £10 million of sales, employing almost 200 people.
Connect Midlands
Connect Midlands is a successful public-private partnership. It is a not-for-profit organisation that runs best practise investment readiness and access to finance programmes, and increases the number of investment deals in the Midlands to commercialise innovation and accelerate growth. This technology, innovation and business network supports early stage entrepreneurs, spin-outs and high-growth companies by linking them to people, sources of expertise and capital, professional services, and entrepreneurs. Connect offers a programme of networking events, workshops, seminars, mentoring, coaching and consultancy, and showcases entrepreneurs to investors. Over the last ten years Connect Midlands has assisted more than 2,000 Midlands-based companies, 300 of which have gone on to raise £200m of new investment.
Science City Research Alliance
The Science City Research Alliance (SCRA) is a strategic union between the universities of Birmingham and Warwick. The Alliance was formed under the Birmingham Science City initiative and benefited from a multi-million pound investment by Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund in the technology areas of advanced materials, energy efficiency and translational medicine. Both universities have a critical mass of expertise in these areas.
The investment has funded joint equipment, research infrastructure and specialist personnel at both institutions. A SCRA team facilitates the interaction between businesses and academics, and the team has considerable industrial experience and expertise in order to guide businesses through each stage of the engagement process.
The aim of SCRA is to pool expertise and work collaboratively on research, and to engage with business and industry, giving access to the latest research, thinking and state-of-the-art equipment in science and technology. SCRA is working in partnership with many local and regional SMEs such as Stepnell Ltd in Rugby, who have been awarded the contract to build the new Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology at Warwick Medical School.
Warwick Conferences
Warwick Conferences offers state-of-the-art conference facilities, and provides bespoke packages for businesses regionally, nationally and internationally, with around 25% of its clients coming from Coventry and Warwickshire. Warwick Conferences is the largest commercial business of the University, with an annual turnover of around £22 million, and its surplus income is reinvested into the University’s world-class teaching and research programmes.
Three purpose built training and conference centres are equipped with the latest audio-visual facilities and provide dedicated residential conference facilities all year round. The Conference Park has a 1,200 seat conference hall, a 570 seat theatre, and a 250 seat conference room, available all year round for daytime meetings and residentially during the student vacation periods at Easter, summer and Christmas. These outstanding facilities are supported by unrivalled customer service and all delegates have access to the University’s sports facilities, shops and restaurants.
Unitemps
From its offices on campus and in Birmingham, Unitemps provides an online recruitment service for universities and commercial clients in the region and throughout the UK. It has around 8000 students available for work, with vacancies usually filled the same or the next day. Unitemps services over 40 clients in Coventry and Warwickshire in the areas of events, marketing support, language interpreters, and care support. Its services lie primarily in administration, customer service, translation, events, and social care, and its profits are re-invested to improve student facilities.
