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Universities and the New Growth Economy Sheffield Hallam University and the Industrial Strategy

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Page 1: Universities and the New Growth Economy - SHU... · Universities and the New Growth Economy Sheffield Hallam University and the Industrial Strategy Universities and the New Growth

Universities and the New Growth Economy

Sheffield Hallam University and the Industrial Strategy

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Introduction

The world is changing. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union constitutes a radical shift in the economic and social framework for industrial policy, business innovation and high quality science. The government’s proposed Industrial Strategy1 identifies the importance of addressing long-term economic challenges, including poor productivity, unbalanced regional growth and a weak track record in translating outstanding knowledge creation into inclusive wealth creation. Sheffield Hallam University offers solutions to these challenges; solutions which are bold, focussed on the long-term and on securing national success.

This paper grew out Sheffield Hallam University’s institutional response to the government’s consultation on its Industrial Strategy. We are making it more widely available to policy makers and politicians as a token of our commitment to success.

In the paper, we set out a response to the challenge for the development of an effective industrial policy, emphasising the importance of collaboration in imaginative new clusters of organisations and a dynamic role for focused public investment.

Success in meeting these long-term economic challenges will require innovative collaborations of agencies, ideas and activities; and an interlocking emphasis on sector, supply chain and place; and flexibility in the implementation of policy and of investment streams.

Intelligent investment can make a significant contribution to success, and strong partnerships between government, private sector and universities like Sheffield Hallam, have the potential to secure a step-change in innovation, productivity and inclusive growth.

We are quite clear: Sheffield Hallam is an engaged university, building strengths in applied research alongside a commitment to securing impact and innovation. Few other universities bring our commitment and insight. One of the UK’s largest universities, strongly rooted in the industrial and scientific heritage of our city and region, we are a powerful driver for success and improvement. We stand ready to work with government to address long-term challenges in the UK economy and drive innovations with huge potential.

At Sheffield Hallam University, we are proud of our contribution to our city-region, our country and our world, and our new University Strategy:Transforming Lives, embeds this still further. We offer a focal point for place, sector and supply chain development; for increasing productivity through research, skills development, and business collaborations; and for leadership and engagement, both locally and globally.

Fundamentally, we are confident, we are collaborative and we are strongly positioned to address profound regional disparities and build a stronger, fairer and more successful country.

Professor Chris Husbands Vice-ChancellorSheffield Hallam University

Carol Stanfield Director of Policy and ProjectsSheffield Hallam University

We stand ready to work with government to address long-term challenges in the UK economy and drive innovations with huge potential.

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Investing in science, research and innovation

Success in industrial strategy depends on being realistic in identifying and addressing a number of critical weaknesses in the UK economy: poor productivity, unbalanced regional growth, poor investment and weak connectivity between outstanding research and successful implementation.

As a nation, we need a much stronger focus on - and support - for science, research and innovation. Sheffield Hallam University fully endorses the government’s aspiration to focus more strongly on export-led growth and successful innovation, recognising the value that could be derived to our own regional economy if science, research and innovation investment is appropriately channelled and managed.

Increased investment in research and development matters, but so do tough choices about prioritising that investment. Too often, governments have avoided difficult choices about investment, and have relied on market-led developments.

Commercialisation of research matters if we are to build on success, not least in the ‘eight great technologies’ of: advanced materials, agri-science, big data and energy-efficient computing, energy storage, regenerative medicine, robotics and autonomous systems, satellites and commercial applications of space and synthetic biology.

Investment needs to be bold to encourage:

• multi-facetedprojectsandmulti-disciplinaryapproachestoproblemsolving,bringinginskills development, knowledge transfer, management and leadership skills, organisational management practices, business incubation activities and networks;;

• appropriateemphasisofplace,sectorandsupplychain;

• riskmitigationinearlystageresearchwhilstpromotingbusinessanduniversitycollaboration at all stages; and

• overthelongerterm,proactiveinvestmentmanagement,basedoncollaborationbetweeninvestor and investee, quickly and constructively identifying what is effective and allowing flexibility in delivery to achieve overarching objectives.

Success requires universities, government, agencies and businesses to change aspects of how they work in ways in which universities, Sheffield Hallam included, have considerable expertise. In this section, we set out four ways in which investment could be shaped to bring together these needs, illustrated with specific examples of work at Sheffield Hallam.

Commercialisation of research in the eight great technologies matters if we are to build on success.

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The National HIPIMS Centre has developed excellent collaborative links with companies, including Rolls Royce and Ionbond, and other research organisations including the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Technologies in Germany, and has the capability to take coating development from the research laboratory to large scale production. However, the pace of innovation in high performance coatings technology is slow, because companies are averse to taking risks due to limited scale-up and production testing facilities.

With government support for the world’s first HIPIMS expertise hub, Sheffield Hallam could accelerate research and development in critical areas of material science by providing an industrial production testbed for HIPIMS technology. This hub will enable engagement with the majority of the current High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres to promote the use of the technology and to conduct direct industrial research, where the cost of research will be subsidised to make it affordable for a wider range of companies.

We can address barriers to research for business in this cross-sectoral technology and maintain our world-leading status, pioneering improvements and developing the next generation of researchers in this field. It is an example of how the research and development investment could build on existing strengths in a local economy, support university and business collaboration, maintain an important UK competitive position and develop important technical skills.

National High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering Centre (HIPIMS)

Sheffield Hallam University is the national leader for this unique technology. With licenced products exported across the globe, HIPIMS produces high performance coatings that enhance material performance in a range of settings such as lightweight electric vehicles, flexible energy technologies, superfast micro-electronics, orthopaedic implants, aero engine efficiency and glass coatings.

Sheffield Hallam’s HIPIMS coatings have been developed for applications as varied as: machine tools and automotive components, where their unique wear performance is critical; jet engine components to enhance the heat resistance of turbine blades; prosthetic hip and knee replacement joints working with Biomet Zimmer to prolong lifetime and reduce surgery costs; and for cooling systems in space satellites in collaboration with the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

HIPIMS already supports, and can further support, many of the sectors highlighted in the Industrial Strategy, as well as driving local, regional and national economic growth by enabling industrial partners to develop new technologies and commercialise our world leading and award winning science.

We estimate that a 1% performance improvement in each of the industries we work with could be worth £500m per annum.

Mitigating investment risks by combining technological and skills development in a proven area of commercial success

We welcome the expansion of mechanisms such as the Higher Education Innovation Fund and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. The ability to identify potential new types of interventions to enable research and business to collaborate - such as investment in skills, or funded placements for researchers in business - would be welcome.

For example, at Sheffield Hallam, we are ambitious to develop equipment, premises, business partnerships and expertise which will maintain an internationally competitive advantage in an enabling technology which can provide significant economic value to a number of sectors..

1% performance improvement in each of the industries we work with could be worth £500m per annum.

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implementing and evaluating the ‘internet of things’ and delivering potential savings in health and social care costs.

We could also ensure vastly improved routes to train carers in the best use of this technology. Building up experience with longer term interaction and collaboration between robots and humans is a prerequisite for introducing robotics in care. It is not only researchers who should build up experience but also carers need to be in contact with robotics devices. In particular, exposing trainee carers to robotic devices is essential for creating the willingness to accept such devices as integral part of general care and ensure technology adoption. The aim is to build more realistic environment for testing the technologies, including distractions from other machines and people.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Centre

The potential application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics is vast. In Sheffield, we have the opportunity to apply advances in AI and robotics to improve health care and industrial application through the long-standing collaboration between the two universities. We have the opportunity to become the leading centre for ‘cobotics’ in the world by scaling up our operations through investing in shared facilities, buildings, equipment and staff.

Significant growth in our laboratory space would allow pioneering research for companion, therapeutic, revalidation, or rehabilitation robots to move and for observation equipment. The robots would be an integral part of the equipment network,

Scaling up the Eight Great Technologies

Sheffield Hallam has specialist research expertise in a number of the ‘eight great technologies’ - including healthcare and medicine, bioscience, digital technologies in particular cyber-security, robotics and artificial intelligence - and we are able to scale up and boost commercialisation of research in these areas.

Supporting absorptive capacity alongside technological innovation

For all research and development investment, innovation in leadership and management skills should be encouraged, as should improved business practices as part of a technological innovation research programme - boosting opportunities to commercialise research in a way in which the UK has historically been poor2. At Sheffield Hallam, our commitment is to align all future research investments with consistent support for leadership and management in partner firms which would increase absorptive capacity.

Our distinctive leadership programme developed in the Sheffield Business School looks specifically at leadership behaviours, enabling consideration of significant ambition and growth, not least in the Sheffield City Region. Changes in leadership behaviour can impact positively on organisational culture, creating innovative environments that not only support business growth but also have the potential to run through supply chains.

Research improvements should support absorptive capacity.

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Apprenticeship to address a shortage in the food industry of high skilled technicians and, of course, Leadership Innovation to complement technology innovation. We work with major food manufacturers and retailers through the delivery of the Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship and will offer the retail apprenticeship once the standard is approved.

We are therefore currently exploring the potential for a ‘Food Innovation Centre of Excellence’, bringing together research expertise in manufacturing and food technology with our expertise in robotics, nutrition and sport nutrition. Business development programmes could be developed through supply chains via existing partnerships, and additional premises for the Centre could allow for incubation hubs for new or growing businesses to work alongside experts, equipment and potential customers.

Such a Centre of Excellence could be focussed on addressing critical challenges the world faces in coming years such as securing food supply.

National Centre for Excellence in Food Engineering

Established with £6.9 million HEFCE Catalyst Funds and a £1m equipment commitment from the Food and Drink Federation, the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink and twenty one leading manufacturers and engineering equipment suppliers4, the Centre provides innovative engineering solutions for food and drink manufacturers.

Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, employing 400,000 people with a GVA of £21.9 billion. A new MEng Food Engineering programme will equip future engineers with leading edge skills and knowledge that food and drink manufacturers will require in the twenty-first century.

The Centre, as currently funded, specifically relates to manufacturing technology; however there is scope to align with expertise in food technology, for example in New Product Development in our Sheffield Business School. The School also offers a new Food Technician Higher Degree

This is as much about engaging busy firms in leadership and management development - time on as well as in the business - as it is about developing the right programme, important though this is. We can start to address some of the endemic barriers to management skill development3 by maximising the value of ‘technological innovation’, the geographic clustering of businesses and the encouragement of original equipment manufacturers of their supply chains.

There is potential to achieve a step change in one of the key barriers to UK productivity growth by bringing business practice and management skills more closely alongside public research and development investment. Sheffield Hallam capitalises on research funding to bring in wider aligned research activities, skills and business development activities.

Multi-disciplinary approaches to social and economic challenges, grounded in local strengths

Universities make a significant contribution to their local economy. At Sheffield Hallam we already contribute £425 million annually to our city-region GVA, and we could expand that through bringing together our expertise in research and innovation; technical knowledge; understanding of policy; multi-disciplinary approaches; education; community engagement; partnership working and business engagement. We have ambitious plans based around our Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, for a globally leading-edge Health Innovation Campus, which will be based in in the economically challenged Attercliffe area of Sheffield.

Bringing business practice and management skills more closely alongside public research and development.

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caring for older people and an increased concern to support independence and good health in later life – and the costs of providing care are becoming increasingly difficult to meet. At the same time, younger people face increasingly complex health challenges, not least as result of sedentary lifestyles and poor dietary choices.

Our solutionThere is no silver bullet to the challenges we face in health and care. It requires systemic contributions from a wide field of activity.

The Health Innovation Campus will draw together the university’s multi-disciplinary expertise to develop a world-leading centre for research, innovation and practical interventions in key areas including physical activity, preventative health care, orthopaedic and rehabilitation treatment, diagnostics, housing design and living spaces, robotics, engineering, applied computing, management, public policy and behaviour change.

It will be unique, focusing on rapid evaluation of health innovations, using our established methodology of identifying incremental gains in short term projects; knowledge transfer; developing technology in robotics, engineering and analytics to improve prevention, treatment and care; and on social, behavioural and physical preventative interventions.

Our expertiseSheffield Hallam has expertise in all of these areas and we are considering how we harness our expertise around the health challenge the nation faces. We have already set out our innovation in robotics for care and how we could enhance this. Health 4.0 describes the creation of new digital services in healthcare. Sensors and cyber-physical systems can fundamentally change the way health and care is delivered, away from hospitals to personalised services drawing on data analytics.

Health Innovation Campus

Sheffield Hallam University has secured £14m investment for the construction of an Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC). The AWRC is the most advanced research and development centre for physical activity in the world bringing together expertise from academia, industry, and the medical profession, delivering innovations that help people move.

These innovations are intended to generate public health benefits for the entire population, through increasing levels of physical activity for people with sedentary lifestyles, helping those who are already active to exercise more effectively, and improving the performance of elite and professional athletes.

The Centre is the centrepiece of Sheffield’s Olympic Legacy Park – a joint venture between Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield City Council - set in the city’s Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District. However, we do not want to restrict our work in the area to the AWRC alone. Sheffield Hallam is in process of developing a longer term plan for a Health Innovation Campus for the site, of which the AWRC is the first step.

The Health Innovation Campus is genuinely visionary. It builds on our expertise to be a pioneering centre for practical innovations to improve health and wellbeing: intervening to promote health as well as to stave off ill-health. But it goes much further. It seeks to revitalise an urban development site by focusing research, development and innovation on some of the most compelling challenges we face as a society. It is a bold initiative with exceptional potential.

The Economic and Social ChallengeThe population is ageing. Inevitably, older people encounter more health problems. There are burgeoning costs of treating and

Focusing research, development and innovation on the most compelling challenges we face as a society.

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with Sheffield Children’s Hospital, a Children’s Health Technology and Innovation Centre. Children need more than scaled down versions of adult medical equipment, such as wheelchairs. The Centre will specialise in developing and proving products to ensure viable devices reach the market as rapidly as possible. For example, providing the recipient of Small Business Research Initiative and Invention for Innovation (i4i) funding with additional, design, prototyping and testing support to ensure device and software related products, are proven, are investment ready and can be put into production.

Around 3,000 people will work, learn and improve their fitness at the Olympic Legacy Park site, alongside our research centres. The Park is home to the Oasis Academy Don Valley - an all-through inclusive Academy for children aged 2-16. It opened with its first class in September 2015. It is also home to the city’s second University Technical College - UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park campus specialising in health and sport science and computing for 600 students aged 14 to 19.

These co-locations are important. They embed research and development in health and education. On site, young people in this area can attend the school or UTC and be exposed to university teaching and research, inspiring attainment, aspiration and motivation to progress to the next level. We will work with young people here through our National Collaborative Outreach Programme to raise aspiration in this area of high deprivation.

With leisure activities also onsite, including the internationally renowned English Institute of Sport Sheffield and iceSheffield, the area also provides jobs at all skill levels.

We have an excellent track record in drawing together health, engineering and computing disciplines to address real-world problems. For example, our researchers from games design, engineering and healthcare have developed a product which is changing the lives of amputees; with the potential to improve the way the NHS trains patients to use prosthetic limbs.

Games developer Ivan Phelan and healthcare researchers are using Oculus Rift virtual reality hardware to address problems experienced by users of prosthetic limbs. Modern electric prosthetic limbs are very expensive – up to £30,000 – and patients are given hours of training, but it can be difficult to take to a prosthetic and many go unused.

The team are harnessing the immersive experience provided by Oculus Rift to help amputees learn how to use prosthetic limbs, offering patients an opportunity to ‘see’ the limb and adjust to using it. Testing demonstrated patients could use the muscle movements in their remaining limb to control the prosthetic, enabling them to perform tasks like lifting, grasping and pinching.

This research is at the cutting edge of technology, and with Oculus Rift virtual reality being developed and improved all the time – and becoming more affordable – the potential for the future is immense. We are working with the NHS on how to build further trials for potential roll out.

Sheffield Hallam fully recognises the value of multi-disciplinary approaches to tackle real world challenges and will be exploring how we can further direct this into Health through developments at the Health Innovation Campus.

We are already scoping further research centres including in collaboration

Intelligent investment will require inclusion of a range of factors to maximise impact and social and economic value. At Sheffield Hallam, we recognise this and have the expertise to bring sector, place and supply chain together, through a multi-disciplinary and applied ethos.

We can bring sector, place and supply chain together.

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At Sheffield Hallam University we welcome the emphasis on the improvement of a technical education system to benefit a wider range of young people. Indeed Sheffield Hallam is a significant supplier of technical education itself from entry and progression routes, professional accreditation, and work-based learning; to our sector leading Higher and Degree Apprenticeship provision, employer engagement in course design and our outreach with schools and colleges across the region. However, what is needed is for government to create the right conditions for broader and deeper collaboration between education partners.

Provider of applied technical skills

Sheffield Hallam has a long history of providing the technical skills our businesses have needed, from our origins in the Sheffield School of Design, established in 1843 to provide the skilled designers for the city’s booming industries. Today, we recruit young people with BTEC and other vocational qualifications, providing them a progression route to skilled employment. Over half of our courses are accredited by professional bodies. We train people in technical and vocational skills to an advanced level such as nurses, teachers, engineers, surveyors.

We are leading developments in higher and degree Apprenticeships and have already launched seven higher and degree apprenticeships with others in development. They are designed to ensure we meet the needs of local and regional employers focusing on STEM and Health subjects, underpinned by management degree apprenticeships.

Our programmes are deeply embedded in close partnership with employers. For example: product design students have created shaving products for Gillette and rucksacks for Berghaus; law students can enhance their experience through participation in credit-bearing placements at law firms and at pro bono advice clinics within our own Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice; digital games students work with Sony to design and build games for the PlayStation.

Sheffield Hallam University is supporting two successful UTCs in the Sheffield City Region and supporting the bid writing for an Infrastructure Institute of Technology in Doncaster. The proposed hub-and-spoke design of the Institute will support young people across the region to develop skills to a level they may not otherwise have had;to pursue opportunities for progression to higher level skills which are much in demand in the economy generally; and which are greatly needed in our region to develop and grow.

As a University, we have a significant track record, stake and role in the delivery of technical education, in the supply of technical skills and in working with employers to meet their demand.

Developing skills

A significant track record, stake and role in delivering technical education.

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Clarity and creating the conditions

We support the need for greater clarity of choice for those undertaking vocational routes, including application to Apprenticeships and we would urge that new education initiatives do not add to the complexity of the picture for young people.

What all providers of technical and academic education need are the conditions by which we can successfully collaborate: clear and flexible pathways for young people so they can make informed choices; high quality teaching at all levels; responsive to, and shaped by, local labour market demand.

Streamlined application processes for students and improved communication channels between providers and agencies should support this, as well as building a culture of local collaboration which recognises the system as of greater importance than the individual institutions within it.

The programme will provide a vehicle to co-ordinate regional funding bids, for example to the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund and enable collaboration to improve our performance across the region as whole. Sheffield Hallam University identified this urgent need in our region - to improve attainment alongside our activities to improve participation in higher education - and is leading this work both through our ability to convene across the education system and through our expertise in education at all levels.

South Yorkshire Futures

At Sheffield Hallam, we are establishing ‘South Yorkshire Futures’, a programme led by our Institute of Education which will convene education partners across the region to improve teaching practice and ultimately pupil attainment, from early years to transition to employment. Three strands of activity will focus on early years; primary and secondary schooling; and tertiary education and transition to employment.

Education providers need the right conditions to collaborate.

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Universities have an important role to play in supporting businesses to start and grow. Sheffield Hallam recognises the role we can play in this in our own community where we have low levels of business start-up and of self-employment. Our economy is dominated by small and medium sized firms who face more acute barriers of cost, time and information failure to business and people development.

Supporting start up and growth companies is integral to our plans for the Food Innovation Centre and Health Innovation Campus, through incubation hubs; university-business collaboration; convening ‘peer to peer’ business networks and knowledge transfer.

The Sheffield Innovation Programme, run with the University of Sheffield, allows small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from across the region to access expertise, facilities and resources to support and develop business growth.

Academic experts with a range of skills and knowledge will work collaboratively with a business to understand and recommend ways forward, deliver innovation support and forge productive partnerships. This builds on success of an earlier programme ‘Innovation Futures’ which ran from 2009-2015 and in that period delivered fully-funded consultancy services to more than 250 businesses, and generated more than £16m in GVA for regional businesses.

Our RISE scheme has been widely recognised for its success in matching 300 graduates with 241 small and medium sized businesses. However, we can do more to scale the programme to impact with more businesses and graduates. An evolution of the programme could include a RISE Plus scheme where the business benefits from a graduate coupled with access to academic expertise, or we could develop sector specific schemes.

Supporting businesses to start and grow

I may be dealing with clients or working in the field launching and recovering balloon payloads or I have even been interviewed by Turkish TV when we sent a pie from Wigan into space! I’ve completed my internship and am now working for Sent Into Space on a permanent contract and very excited to see the company continue to grow in the future.

For Sent into Space, RISE handled the entire recruitment process up to final interview. I can see how this is particularly helpful for busy start-ups like Sent Into Space who have often not had to recruit extensively before and would struggle to allocate sufficient time to the recruitment process. A huge part of the selection process is willingness to learn and develop skills - this is essential for a business like Sent Into Space. “As a small business, working with RISE has been crucial to our success,” says Chris Rose, Director and my boss. “With their help, we have been able to find the talent we needed to achieve scale, whilst giving back to the local area by offering positions for recent graduates.”

RISE: Sent into Space

Daniel Blaney graduated with a Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Bangor University in 2015. Returning to his home town of Sheffield, he applied for internships through the RISE scheme. The RISE programme provided him with extensive support in preparing for interviews, particularly in how to present skills and achievements while answering questions.

Daniel was successful at interview and started at Sent Into Space in August 2016. Sent Into Space conducts experiments and photography in near space using high altitude balloons and was established by two Sheffield PhD graduates. There are currently four RISE interns and two apprentices. Daniel’s words are clear:

“The company and job are fantastic. It was very clear at my interview that I would be entrusted to be self-motivated with the projects I was given. There is no typical day,

Supporting start up and growth companies is integral to our plans.

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Sheffield Hallam University is conscious of our role in driving growth regionally. The Sheffield City Region has below average proportions of people with high level skills, with 37% employed as Managers, Professionals or Associate Professionals compared to 44% nationally; below average levels of people with qualifications at NVQ4+, with 28% compared to 36%; 0.7 jobs for persons of working age compared to 0.82 nationally; and 8.8% defined are self-employed compared to 10.6% nationally. A recent Centre for Cities report characterised Sheffield as having a high knowledge city centre and low knowledge suburb.

At Sheffield Hallam, we recognise this and seek to continue to raise skill levels and economic growth through raising attainment, aspiration, achievement and engagement with the business community. South Yorkshire Futures will help to raise attainment, and supplement our continuing work as the leading supplier of teacher training in the region.

We also have a proud history of raising aspiration and widening participation in higher education through our own outreach work and the widely recognised excellence of Higher Education Participation Partnership (HEPP) which Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield have fostered over the last decade. 18% of Sheffield Hallam students come from low participation areas, compared to 11% for all universities and 41% come from low income backgrounds, compared to 33%.

We help our students succeed through our teaching, support and our applied focus. We offer in the region of 19,000 placements each year, the Venture Matrix scheme to allow businesses to work on a project basis with students, and the Hatchery incubation hub to foster student entrepreneurs.

Sheffield Hallam is also successful at supporting students from disadvantaged background in study; having a first year drop-out rate of just 6.7% compared to a sector average of 8.2%.

93% of our graduates are in employment within 6 months of graduation, and these figures are higher for our applied technical courses. A recent evaluation of our engagement with industry reported that it had created £95m in profit and 2,500 jobs.

We work closely with education partners in the region, recognising that not all students will want to travel to Sheffield. For example, to aid progression, ambition and advancement, and to meet local workforce demand, we have developed a Foundation Degree in Health and Social Care which is being delivered in eight colleges locally.

Driving growth for all

A proud history of raising aspiration and widening participation in higher education.

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innovation-led business and industry and a culture of creativity; a region known for its quality of life, with outstanding health care provision and environmental stewardship which integrates the best of the urban and the rural; a highly connected city region, physically and virtually, open to ideas, people and influences from around the world; an inclusive city region where investment and growth produces prosperity and benefits which are shared by all’.

This is a pioneering move in the Sheffield City Region, the first we are aware of in the UK. 18 months in the making, we are now canvassing wider support for the implementation of a transition phase, pending the election of a Mayor in 2018. We are in discussions with the Local Economic Partnership concerning alignment to the revised Strategic Economic Plan and synchronising our respective workstreams.

This is a bold vision where the anchor institutions have demonstrated leadership, and illustrates how universities, hospitals and other major employers in a region could collaborate with existing institutions to strengthen existing structures, galvanise action and respond to the challenges identified in the Industrial Strategy at a regional level. We look to engage with others to secure the resources and long-term commitment which will enable us to realise our vision for the city, its people, its region and the nation.

Sheffield City Region Vision

Sheffield Hallam University understands its role as an anchor institution in the region, as an employer, purchaser, educator and beacon for collaboration locally, nationally and internationally. By working collaboratively, we achieve greater success and have a strong track record in working collaboratively with local partners. We have done so on specific schemes and in developing a vision for a successful City Region.

With the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching hospital we have developed a 25 year prospectus4 - the Sheffield City Region Vision - to resolve the problems faced in our post-industrial economy and to realise our great potential as a region. The result is unique: a long-term vision for a city future led by institutions with genuine long term commitment. We have been bold and we look to others to match our commitment – universities at the very heart of growth. The prospectus sets out a vision where public, private and voluntary sectors and communities work together to transform health, education, job opportunities, environment and transport - each organisation and each theme working together to add to more than the sum of their parts.

Our vision is of ‘an outward-looking city region, known above all for its skilled and creative people; a region underpinned by

ConclusionUniversities are key partners in delivering the Industrial Strategy - not just through research expertise, education and skills development, but through joining up the different aspects of the strategy so they become more than the sum of their parts.

The challenge will be to draw on the very best of what universities can offer to re-shape an economy which can genuinely work for all.

At Sheffield Hallam University we are ready and able to make a significant contribution, and we look forward to collaborating with government and with others who can help realise the opportunities we see.

Sheffield Hallam University understands its role as an anchor institution.

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1 Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2017, ‘Building Our Industrial Strategy’.

2 Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2014, ‘Insights from international benchmarking of the UK science and innovation system’.

3 UKCES, 2016. ‘Evaluation of UK Futures Programme: Conclusions and Guidance’.

4 apetito, Bradman Lake,Cargill, Dalehead Foods, Endress + Hauser, Festo, General Mills, GS Fresh, Invensys, Kellogg’s, Mars, McCains, Nalco, Nestle, Premier Foods, Rockwell Automation, Schnieder Electric, Spirax Sarco, Star Refrigeration, Tate and Lyle Sugars, The Authentic Food Company, Warburtons, William Jackson Food Group

2 ‘A Better Future Together’

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Chapter 5 Quality Assurance Processes

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