Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership – Written evidence (LSI0016)
Science & Innovation
We support Sir John Bell’s recommendation to “Capitalise on UKRI to increase interdisciplinary research, work more effectively with industry and support high-risk science.” We would add that, although the UK has a strong life science research base, the case for investing more public ( and private ) money in biomedical and health research would be strengthened, and be more compelling to the wider public, if the life science research community and relevant policy makers were to enhance two areas of policy :
i) Demonstrate commercialisable potential of their research, and increase the efficiency of translating life science into the economy. Current mechanisms for funding science are not achieving this. Persisting with the same funding model will result in the same outcomes.
ii) Recognise that the real extent and strength, and potential for innovation, of the UK’s rich life sciences ecosystem are being overlooked by over concentrating support and resources on the Golden Triangle and large “household name” corporates. These are, without question, highly valuable contributors . However a more thorough and comprehensive appreciation of UK life science assets ( including those derived from other research areas and other industrial sectors and SMEs ) would also, without question, yield great benefits. As Sir John Bell puts it “Life Sciences is already a truly UK-wide endeavour”
To advance both of these aspirations (i & ii above) we would highlight, as informative, both Sir Mark Walport’s letter to the SoS earlier this year in connection with the “Faraday Challenge”; and also the Innovation South BEIS-sponsored Science and Innovation Audit.
Sir Mark Walport’s letter set out a vision for a model for how UK Science & Innovation should work and be judged/evaluated. It is with particular reference to the “Faraday Challenge” and developing battery technology, however, the principles have wider relevance: “Programme structure - The ‘Faraday Challenge’ should refer to the entire ‘programme of programmes’ (coordinating research, innovation, and scale-up programmes) and has the potential to take the evolution of the UK’s science and innovation model a significant step forward, increasing the efficiency of translation of science into the economy. In contrast to current basic research programmes which are more broadly based and not explicitly linked to specific innovation and scale-up programmes, the industry defined challenges here are more tightly focussed and explicitly linked to innovation and scale up programmes by strong governance arrangements ……….."
The Innovation South[1] Science & Innovation Audit, backed by BEIS and led by the Enterprise M3 Local Economic Partnership, demonstrates both the value of understanding the rich diversity of life science strengths found in a number of UK regions and places as well as in London, Oxford and Cambridge (in this case in Southern England); and also offers proposals for enhancing the commercialisation of these activities.
The Innovation South Audit (at the time of writing the full Audit report is embargoed pending publication by the Govt.) focuses on the region’s capacity to commercially exploit its excellence in a portfolio of five mutually supportive digital enabling technologies, namely: Digital Communications, including 5 G; Cyber Security; Big Data Analytics; Photonics; and Quantum. It also examines the application of these technologies in four of the region’s key sectors: Bioscience; Connected Digital; Advanced Engineering and Marine & Maritime.
We offer four case studies of life science research and innovation, found in the Innovation South region, which underline the gains of a broad and inclusive approach to the UK’s Life Sciences in terms of research discipline, sectors and geography.
case study i
The 5 G Innovation Centre, based at the University of Surrey, demonstrates how technology assets should be recognised as key to a successful UK Life Science Science and Innovation Industrial Strategy. The 5GIC is working closely with DCMS, Treasury, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and other partners to develop a national framework to provide large-scale 5G demonstrators in sectors including Health, and Agritech.
The next two case studies show how exciting health advances are coming out of health scientists working with colleagues in creative digital media disciplines.
case study ii
Bournemouth University’s Orthopaedic Research Institute is working & National Centre for Computer Animation
The Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) at Bournemouth University (BU), has invested heavily in staff and state of the art equipment and facilities, including a gait lab and a virtual reality surgical training simulator. The ORI unit is working across BU with the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) and the SciTech Games Technology Group to produce training and diagnostic scenario-games in virtual reality.
Co-operation between these two globally-recognised centres enables surgeons to do orthopaedic training and achieve expertise before performing “live” treatments and allows the gait lab to provide walking and running scenarios that assess the root of orthopaedic ailments in patients.
Being able to assess the results of surgery accurately and train surgeons without “learning on the patient” has generated huge interest at home and abroad. ORI is already working with a multinational company on a multi-centre clinical trial and with a software company on virtual clinics.
case study iii
Digital Enabling Technologies at University Hospital Southampton
In September 2016, University Hospital Southampton (UHS) achieved national recognition as an IT Centre of Excellence and Global Exemplar for Clinical Informatics development. At least two things have been essential to the success of the UHS Informatics Strategy: putting the clinician and health professional - the users - at the heart of any design; and collaboration with innovative, flexible SMEs, who offer good value for money, rather than contracting with large IT companies.
As an example, this approach is now proving its value in the challenging process of digitising all historic and future medical records held by UHS, more than 2 million, by the end of 2017.
UHS Lifelines - a new global electronic record interface at UHS: It is essential that clinicians and health professionals can visualise a patient’s entire clinical record in a simple way, before drilling down into key clinical details and facts. The interface is highly adaptable as new data streams become available, or new tools such as “hover over” visualisation. It represents a major advance in speed over “list mode” access to PDF documents and electronic record sheets. Lifelines also allows the clinician to zoom down into an area of interest, and filter out unwanted material.
The Lifelines concept has its origins in the 1990s in a university laboratory in the United States. The idea was never turned into a practical clinical system then and to date the UHS Lifelines data visualisation methodology is unique in practical use in commercial and NHS clinical informatics systems. It illustrates the power of agile, iterative, ground upwards development by a small team - one clinician, one systems consultant and one IT Manager at UHS - to produce innovation at minimal cost within a public sector organisation to clear end user specifications.
There is considerable potential for further contributions from public, commercial and SME partnerships to drive nationally significant developments of Digital Enabling Technologies across Healthcare.
Digital Health has educational and job creation opportunities: In recognition of the need to build the skill sets among programmers who also understand the complexities of clinical systems, the UHS IT team has started working with the School of Media Arts and Technology at Solent University to develop interest among undergraduates in health care programming and visualization. Electronics and Computing Sciences at the University of Southampton are working with medicine and the Institute for Life Sciences to scope out undergraduate courses in digital health.
case study iv
Applying technologies across sectors: McLaren
McLaren Technology Group is a high-technology company based in Woking in Surrey. Best known for the development of Formula One racing cars and (more recently) a range of luxury high-performance sports cars, McLaren Applied Technologies uses the Group’s R&D and technical expertise to improve innovation in a range of other industries.
Beyond the automotive sector, McLaren is using its digital technology strengths to address challenges in health, wellbeing and energy. McLaren’s experience in installing advanced sensors in racing cars, and its success in collecting and analysing data has led it to work with GlaxoSmithKline to develop wearable technologies. Recently, these have been used to monitor patients recovering from strokes and managing neurological disorders and in improving sports safety
These examples take McLaren into fields very different from those envisaged by Bruce McLaren when he developed his first Formula 1 car in 1966. But they illustrate how the combination of engineering expertise and digital technologies are blurring conventional sector boundaries.
6. Industrial Strategy (If published) Does the strategy contain the right recommendations? What should it contain/what is missing? How will the life sciences strategy interact with the wider industrial strategy, including regional and devolved administration strategies? How will the strategies be coordinated so that they don’t operate in ‘silos’?
It is essential that both the industrial strategy and the life science strategy is business led, and that those businesses are supported to work in partnership with other relevant agents including academia and LEPs whose local and regional insights are key to establishing effective links and connections with other sectors and expertise.
7. What opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are there/should there be in the strategy? How can they be involved in its development and implementation?
The Importance of LEPs
This committee should consider and be aware of the importance of LEPs in driving the success of the UK’s Life Science Industries.
On page 40 of his report, Sir John Bell, sets out the challenges and the opportunities:
“Regions should make the most of existing opportunities locally to grow clusters and build resilience by working in partnership across local Government, LEPs (in England), universities and research institutes, NHS, AHSNs, local businesses and support organisations, to identify and coalesce the local vision for life sciences. Science & Innovation Audits, Local Growth Funds and Growth Hubs (in England), Enterprise Zones and local rates and planning flexibilities can all be utilised to support a vision for life sciences. Commercially successful companies can play a key role in nurturing the small companies in their geographies – stakeholder feedback suggests that the leadership and management skills required to take a company from science, research and financing to development, manufacturing scale-up and commercialisation are in short supply in the UK.”
He goes further:
“Successful clusters are typically backed by a cluster organisation such as MassBio in Boston, MedCity in London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Northern Health Science Alliance in the North of England. These organisations promote and market the clusters as well as providing brokering and signposting for investment and collaboration. Some also provide funding opportunities, business support and incubator, laboratory and office space. Research by the Centre for Cities published in 2014 suggested that the brand identity of key clusters in the UK is weak, impacting investment, talent, and demand, and that cluster networks are failing to connect people within and outside the cluster systematically. The UK needs to be better and more coherent in selling this UK offer to the rest of the world.”
Local Enterprise Partnerships have great potential to be the catalysts and enablers to support and stimulate life science clusters in their geographical areas, by improving the connectedness and the knowledge transfer between neighbouring enterprises. They could, for example, have a role in connecting small innovative firms with larger accelerator companies to fuel growth.
For example, research carried out by Enterprise M3 LEP, in partnership with the Institute for Life Sciences at the University of Southampton and the private company, OBN, identified around 500 businesses across the South engaged in the development of medical devices and the design and manufacture of technologies used to identify and test for diseases.
However, the capacity of LEPs to maximise their impact in such areas as supporting and promoting innovation clusters is currently constrained by a lack of revenue funding. This could be reviewed.
16. What impact will Brexit have on the Life Sciences sector? Will the strategy help the sector to mitigate the risks and take advantage of the opportunities of Brexit?
Well rehearsed concerns about the impact of Brexit focus on areas including the supply of talent and skills and the fear that international research and innovation collaborative opportunities will be limited or curtailed. To the extent that a life sciences strategy can mitigate these effects then it will help. The spirit of the report to promote and champion UK life sciences is certainly a good step. The Innovation South Science & Innovation Audit identifies the need to ensure a good supply of specialised digital skills in the UK and this will be important for advancing innovation in the life science sectors too.
13 September 2017
[1] “Innovation South” is a powerful region for science and innovation. It is a consortium of private and public sector partners in 8 counties across the South of England: Dorset, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, East & West Sussex, Kent and the Isle of Wight.