Glasgow is on the up – we need just new powers and resources to thrive

The Herald Scotland

18 hours ago

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At Glasgow Airport in Renfrewshire, AMIDS continues to grow and develop as Scotland's principal location for Advanced Manufacturing, acting as a hub and key resource for industry and innovators throughout the country.
From its beginning as the location for the University of Strathclyde's Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), AMIDS has gone on to be the chosen location for the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise-funded National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS). NMIS, which receives major funding from the UK's Catapult programme as one of its core facilities, is operated by Strathclyde and is helping transform Scottish manufacturing providing companies with access to new manufacturing technologies collectively known as 'Industry 4.0'.
Additionally, industry partners CPI chose AMIDS to locate its £88M, UK-leading Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC) using continuous manufacturing technologies to produce vital new medicines. MMIC has invested a further £10M in a new Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Innovation Centre of Excellence (OMICE) to help develop sustainable manufacturing processes for new drugs to help treat cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's; this again has benefitted from both national and devolved government support.
The importance of technology (Image: PA)
The Innovation Districts and the Glasgow City Region Cabinet's ten-year track record of delivering the joint UK and Scottish Governments' £1.13Bn City Deal programme provides the UK government with assurance that their funding of a £44M Innovation Accelerator and £160M Investment Zone will bear real fruit in boosting regional and national growth, productivity and jobs.
These pump-priming investments will leverage a further £347M in private funding and generate growth across advanced manufacturing, quantum technologies and the space sector, supporting over 10,000 jobs and creating new skills and market opportunities.
However, Glasgow City Region (GCR) and its partners, including the Glasgow Economic Leadership (GEL) Board, can deliver more if they had powers, resources and flexibilities from Scottish and UK governments. GCR is already showing the value of strategic collaboration across local authorities, business and academia as well as with Scottish and UK government agencies.
This would require Glasgow City Region receiving new powers and responsibilities for skills and apprenticeships to help better match regional skills demand with strategic skills supply - as was proposed by the Withers' Review.
For the UK Government, Glasgow could be treated on the same basis as major English metropolitan areas like Greater Manchester and the West Midlands which have been granted 'single pot' budgets allowing them to better coordinate resources across economic and social programmes to best meet their needs.
Last week's announcement by Lord Patrick Vallance, UK Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, that Glasgow would be awarded £30M of Local Innovation Partnership funding, alongside its English peers, is welcome evidence that the UK Government in Lord Vallance's words is committed to 'support places with the greatest untapped productivity potential'. This latest award is testament to the power of partnership working across the city region and its innovation partners as well as with UK and Scottish governments and their agencies. And it is warmly welcomed by the GEL Board.
GEL brings together senior leaders and executives from GCR's private, public and academic sectors and across key sectors including Advanced Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Finance & Business Services, Tourism & Events, Creative Economy, Digital Technology and Higher & Further Education. This unprecedented business connectivity underpins GEL's role as the primary 'business community advisor' to the GCR Cabinet and supports sectoral delivery of real economic impact.
The GEL Board now has a city region-wide remit, however its focus remains the same: to drive greater strategic alignment in economic development efforts from the private, public and academic sectors and to support greater investment across Glasgow city region, across key sectors, the innovation economy and in new skills and job opportunities.
GEL has responded positively to the calls from Councillor Susan Aitken, chair of the GCR Cabinet, and Stuart Patrick, CEO of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, to define and seek greater powers to turbo charge the next phase in the development of Glasgow city region.
To explore this further, the GEL Board is delighted that the Deputy First Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland will participate in our next meeting. Encouragingly, they have both accepted and will attend together. We have shown that things work best when collaboration is prioritised. We have an opportunity to move the partnership working between GCR and the Scottish and UK governments to a new level and to provide GCR with the support to enable it to deliver for its citizens, the city region, Scotland and the UK.
That is a prize that we can all get behind and the time to do it is now.
Professor Sir Jim McDonald OBE is the principal of the University of Strathclyde and co-chair of the Glasgow Economic Leadership Board