23 May 2008
In the South West of England aerospace is the largest sub-sector in employment terms; accounting for almost a third of all employment positions in the South West's Advanced Engineering Sector. Many of the largest aerospace companies in the UK have major facilities here. They in turn are supported by over 700 supply chain companies. A large proportion of this activity is clustered around Bristol with global players such as Airbus UK, BAe Systems and Rolls-Royce and around Gloucester with GE Aviation, Messier-Dowty and Moog Controls.
The ability to develop next generation products is one of the key criteria for businesses choosing to locate in South West England. Many larger companies look to the region's universities for support on R&D, graduate and post-graduate training for CPD (continuous professional development) of staff.
This project was formed under the title of Knowledge Exploitation South West 2 (KESW2) funded by HERDA-SW and was known as the Aerospace Flagship Initiative. The project began in February 2007 with the following aims;
1. To identify perceived barriers to developing better working relations between aerospace companies in the South West of England and their supply chain, including HEIs.
2. To provide an aerospace sector brief to HERDA-SW detailing the aerospace related capabilities within six named regional Universities.
3. To organise an event (and produce a report) to disseminate the findings from the above;
4. To stimulate 2 jobs created or secured and £200k ‘GVA’.
Regional aerospace related companies were engaged through a programme of market research and two industrial facing events. These activities revealed some common concerns about access to funding, achieving knowledge transfer with Universities, protecting Intellectual property and coping with inefficient supply chains. But one of the major concerns to arise centred on the lack of skills, particularly specialist skills and the low numbers of engineers emerging from the education system, with the consequent cost of recruiting and training staff to understand and work with the latest technology.
The aerospace sector brief has been compiled with the assistance from the six Universities, through research, supplied information, discussions with academics, visits and workshops. It shows the capabilities and facilities of interest to the aerospace industry, with comments on their capacity to collaborate in certain areas.
To read the aerospace sector brief click here
