YORKSHIRE’S TECHNOLOGY SECTOR 2020

Technology has been a buzz word in Yorkshire’s economic strategy for a number of years now. Technology is seen as an industry that has the potential to revitalise sub-regional economies, following the withdrawal of traditional industries. However despite all of this hype Yorkshire and Humber is still ranked eighth in a table of the most innovative regions in the UK.

So, how will the next 14 years shape up for the technology sector? I would argue that it depends largely on a change in culture among both our students at schools and universities and in business.

Creating the entrepreneurial attitude takes a lot of change. When you get right down to it, the attitudes of the young come from their role models, parents and teachers. We need to encourage our schools to celebrate British business success, and create a different attitude towards entrepreneurship.

A great example of a different attitude is America’s approach to business failure; I understand that in the US venture capitalists don’t like investing in you unless you’ve had at least one business failure. Here they turn up their nose at anyone whose company has gone onto insolvency. The Americans like those who have had the hard experience of trouble and the bottle to try again.

At Connect Yorkshire we prime technology companies for investment and growth. Every year about 40-50 technology companies attend our various programmes. The vast majority of these have been started by people who have been working in an industry for 10 or more years. They see a gap in the market, or a new development not being exploited by their employer, and try to build a technology business to fill that gap. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of new technology businesses do not come out of universities.

Universities by their very nature concentrate on academic research, and not on business creation. Research funding largely comes from the public sector, and is awarded purely on the quality of research – as judged by other academics, not on how much a university has contributed to the regional or national economy.

The way to ensure a better research to innovation ratio is to increase the amount of research inspired by commercial needs. This is where funding from research–led businesses is invaluable.
At the heart of the issue is that while research and innovation – defined as the commercial exploitation of ideas - maybe symbiotic, they are not synonymous; research does not necessarily yield innovation.

Over the last 20-30 years we have had three major technology businesses in Yorkshire, Systime in the 80’s, and Pace and Filtronic have continuing success from the 90’s to today. Systime employees have gone on to found numerous IT businesses in their own right. A few more success stories on this scale will give the technology sector in 2020 a significant boost.

Local medical device companies harbour a huge wealth of talented scientists; individuals experienced in product development, regulatory and advanced manufacturing. Johnson and Johnson Wound Management in Gargrave, Smith and Nephew in York and Hull and Depuy in Leeds are huge international companies with a strong footing in the region. Could it be by 2020, Yorkshire is considered the hub of Britain’s medical device industry?

It’s a strong possibility and emerging companies such as Cell Tran, Ullsys, and Avanticare prove with the correct support anything is possible. Success breeds success and if Yorkshire is perceived as a centre of medical device excellence the battle of attracting and then retaining key individuals to the region will be a lot easier. This will be helped by the activities of IP2IPO at Leeds and York Universities and Bio Fusion at Sheffield University.

These White Rose universities have the ability to support a flourishing medical device industry as we head towards 2020. In addition, I believe there will be many more technology businesses coming out of the students from Sheffield Hallam, Leeds Met, Hull, Bradford and the other non White Rose universities.