Scottish Enterprise: Skill talent

Skills plan for sciences

Moves are underway by industry, academia and government agencies to develop the skills that are essential for the growth of the chemical sciences sector

Ensuring a steady flow of fresh talent and addressing the relatively low levels of industry R&D are key challenges facing Scotland’s chemical sciences sector. Engaging with schools, colleges and universities, boosting levels of R&D investment and tackling skills shortages are all essential for the growth of the chemical sciences sector.

Copyright: Rex Features

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has been tasked with developing a full view of the jobs, careers and learning opportunities that already exist across all areas of Scotland’s chemical sciences sector and identifying the gaps in current and future needs. It is working on Skills Investment Plans in both the life and chemical sciences. These plans have been developed in consultation with the industry and academia to understand and address the main issues facing the sector and its skills requirements.

The chemical sciences plan, which is being launched this October, has identified four broad themes: increasing the flow of new entrants to the sector, developing pathways to help recruit experienced people, upskilling the existing workforce and better meeting employer demand.

Within the skills plan is an action plan that SDS and sub-groups of Chemical Sciences Scotland and Life Sciences Advisory Board (LISAB) will work on together to deliver, through relevant skills programmes and activities.

“We have been working alongside the industry to develop the skills investment plan. We hope the plan will bring industry and education closer together to deliver the key actions,” says Ronnie Palin, key sector manager – life sciences, Skills Development Scotland.

One of the ideas is a shared modern apprenticeship. Palin says this could be a way to engage with the smaller companies in Scotland. A shared apprenticeship scheme would involve larger companies providing training and work experience, with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having apprentices designated to them for further work experience.

A number of MSc and PhD programmes have already been developed. The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) has developed an MSc programme with modules available from 14 universities and a work placement to give students an understanding of the industrial environment.

IBioIC also has nine PhD students. The Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC) has also just developed a new MSc in Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing.

Transition programmes to help people change careers will also be developed. INEOS and Forth Valley College have already developed a 12-week programme to retrain ex-military personnel as electrical or mechanical engineers to work at INEOS.

Other programmes include promoting Scotland as a top chemical science career location; helping employers navigate the immigration system so they can employ experienced staff from aboard, and working with the industry to boost the number of work placements available for degree-course students. “Universities are taking on more students, the departments are growing, but the number of work placements aren’t necessarily growing,” says Palin. “People who’ve done a placement are better positioned to get a job.”

R&D enhancement
The need to increase industry R&D is not unique to the industrial biotechnology sector. It is also an issue across the chemical and life sciences industries. Scotland has a high-quality research base and has had some successes in translating academic research into benefits for businesses and the industry, but in many cases is not doing that very effectively, says Paul Hagan, director of research and innovation at the Scottish Funding Council. “There is an untapped potential,” he says.

The Scottish Funding Council has supported smaller-scale projects that have been fairly successful, he says. However, what it has not been doing is securing a significant culture change and a bigger impact across the country. “That’s what is needed if we’re going to make a big difference,” says Hagan.

The Scottish Funding Council began its work with Scottish Enterprise as well as Highlands and Islands Enterprise on establishing innovation centres two years ago. The drive to establish these centres was about encouraging businesses and the industry to come forward with the issues that they have and seek help and support from the university research base. At the same time, the centres will also try to encourage a wider spread of a research culture in the business community.

“It’s not just about stuff flowing out of university, but also about the flow from businesses to university and between businesses. It about a culture of innovation being established,” says Hagan. “Obviously we want to see the benefits in terms of products and impact on the economy, but the fundamental change needed here is the cultural change in engagement of businesses with universities. It’s already underway. Our universities are already good at working with business and the industry, but we want them to be the best in the world at doing it,” he says.

The Council put out a call for those interested in establishing an innovation centre. They received 30 applications and supported three which were launched in 2013 – CENSIS is the centre of excellence for sensor and imaging systems technologies, supporting world-leading collaborative research in intelligent sensor networks and systems; Digital Health Institute – offering a fusion of health, design, technology and business knowledge; and Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre – supporting the development of new and better targeted medicines by pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Five other centres have come out of a later workshop process, with industry and universities working together to identify what innovation centres are needed and what they would look like. The resulting centres, which have either recently launched or will be launching in the coming months, are: Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre, Scottish Aquaculture Innovation centre, Construction Scotland Innovation Centre, Oil and Gas Innovation Centre, and The DataLab, to help Scotland capitalise on the growing market in analytics and “big data” technology.

INNOVATION FACTOR
These centres are key to the establishment of a culture of innovation. “They’re meant to help transform the economy, and if we get this right some of them have the potential to do that,” says Hagan.

The aim is for the centres to also work together rather than remaining in silos. “We’re seeing the first signs of activity across the sectors. For example, digital health, stratified medicine and the data lab are talking together,” says Hagan,

These eight new innovation centres will join other activities already established through alternative funding paths, such as CMAC. Hagan says the other innovation activities that are already up and running are an important part of the innovation landscape. “We don’t see innovation centres as the only places to have innovation. We know we need to develop different models for different industries. We’re interested in innovation wherever it emerges from,” says Hagan.

Another way for businesses to access innovation support is through Interface, which provides a central point of access to the expertise available in Scotland’s Higher Education and Research Institutions. Interface helps businesses by matching them to the right academic expertise.

As a result of funding from SFC, businesses also get a £5,000 innovation voucher to begin that initial engagement. The aim is to bring more SMEs into working with universities. “It’s been a huge success over the last two to three years,” says Hagan.

COLLABORATION OPENS ACCESS TO ACADEMIA
ScotCHEM is the access door to chemical sciences academia in Scotland. Launched in 2005, it is a strategic initiative to generate collaboration, enable wider access to major facilities and enhance chemistry research and research training in Scotland.

It is important for Scotland to sustain a strong academic chemistry sector within its universities. However, the task of remaining competitive, both within the UK and globally, presents challenges. The complex nature of research has led to the most successful teams being concentrated in larger, often interdisciplinary, units supported by the necessary facilities.

ScotCHEM is the Scottish academic chemistry community’s response to these challenges. It brings together the major players in research in chemical sciences. Its umbrella structure consists of two integrated university pairings – WestCHEM, comprising Glasgow and Strathclyde, and EaStCHEM, bringing together Edinburgh and St Andrews. Aberdeen, Dundee and Heriot-Watt are the other full members.

A ScotCHEM International Graduate School has been established for research 
students. It builds on the collective facilities and courses available through all seven universities and their collaborators in Scotland and overseas.

BENCHMARK PUTS SCOTLAND AMONG THE TOP

The Elsevier report paints a favourable picture

Scotland has a strong research base in chemical 
sciences with high-quality 
research, a growing output and high levels of international collaboration, says a recent report from science publisher Elsevier.

The report, entitled “The International Comparative Performance of the Scottish Research Base in Chemical Sciences”, was prepared for Scottish Enterprise, and benchmarks the Scottish research base in chemical sciences against selected countries.

It focuses on contrasting the situation before ScotCHEM was launched in 2005 and after, to help understand the impact ScotCHEM has had on the research environment.

It found that Scotland shows high and increasing levels of international collaboration in chemical sciences. Its level of collaboration between universities and industry is above the world average, but levels decreased slightly from 5.7% in 2000-2005 to 4.9% in 2006-2011.

However, when the number of researchers, GDP and R&D expenditure are taken into account, Scotland’s output and citations are among the top of all the comparison countries.

The report shows that Scottish output accounts for 0.6% of all chemical sciences publications worldwide. This output is growing and the growth rate is increasing, from 4.1% in 2000-2005 to 5.9% for 2006-2011. Also, Scotland has a relatively high and rising citation impact. This is an indicator of the quality of the publications. Scotland’s field weighted citation impact rose from 1.34 in 2000-2005 to 1.48 in 2006-2011.

Scotland has also produced a relatively high percentage of highly cited publications, and this has increased after 2005. Its chemical sciences research is also, on average, cited more often by patents than most of the comparison countries.