31 May 2023
By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
It is hard to disagree with Andy Cliffe, the new chief executive of AGS Airports, owners of Glasgow Airport, that Glasgow’s messaging is punching below its weight. It was a lesson already learnt from a piece of work carried out before the pandemic by urban experts, the Business of Cities. Examining data from over 450 reports comparing cities across the world, their conclusion was that, while Glasgow had been making headway as a tourism destination, there was very little appreciation of how else Glasgow earns its living.
Observers knew how we had used culture and sport to make a compelling case for turning an industrial metropolis into a rewarding tourist experience, but they knew very little of the current status of the sectors at the heart of our economic history; our engineering, our medical sciences and the financial services that supported their growth.
This would have been a more depressing result had The Business of Cities not also suggested the elements of the business story that Glasgow is well placed to tell. And that too is Mr Cliffe’s belief. There is a powerful message to get across and it would make his job attracting air routes to Glasgow Airport easier if we increased our efforts to do so.
One aspect that The Business of Cities’ report covered was what is now being described in urban economic development circles as a city’s innovation eco-system. There is nothing especially complex about an innovation eco-system. It describes how effective a city is in supporting new ideas, whether these be for products, services or whole new ways of living. The good news for Glasgow is that our eco-system is rich and evolving quickly.
That much was clear from a series of workshops organised by the team at Glasgow City of Science and Innovation, a partnership supporting the development of our eco-system and of which I am proud to be the chair.
Over 100 individuals from technology businesses, from our universities and colleges and from both national and local government contributed their views on what should be included in a fresh innovation action plan to keep the city region’s eco-system growing.
We have three emerging innovation districts, each with a different mix of specialisms in engineering, health and life sciences and advanced manufacturing. Space, photonics, precision medicine, digital chemistry, renewable energy and the creative industries all feature in the eleven projects currently being funded by the UK Government’s Innovation Accelerator Programme. Our research universities have been investing heavily in new facilities such as the first Technology and Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde and the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow. There is a great deal more to come.
There is a very long list of institutes and centres of excellence in everything from satellite applications, sensors, metallurgy, medicines manufacturing and health and wellbeing. And we have well established assets like the Glasgow Science Centre and the Glasgow Science Festival now being joined by newer ones such as the Glasgow City Innovation District’s Technology Week, Bruntwood SciTech’s Digital Technology Hub and the Scottish Government’s Techscaler.
Glasgow’s innovation action plan will have to answer many of the issues raised in the workshops. Do we place enough priority on the importance of our innovation economy? Is our risk appetite strong enough given the likelihood that many commercialisation projects won’t succeed? Are we placing the right bets on our most promising sectors? Have we built an effective community of experience around our innovators to help them grow successful businesses and have we made it easy enough to access funding at the various stages of the business growth cycle?
But the workshops also repeatedly raised the importance of communicating worldwide what is happening in Glasgow if we are to attract talent, attract investment and secure the next rounds of funding from national governments and from academic research councils. We are currently not doing that well enough and collectively we must renew our marketing efforts and rise to Mr Cliffe’s challenge.
This article was first published in The Herald on Wednesday 31 May 2023
