FutureStory: Derby and the East Midlands

FutureStory Derby and the East Midlands

Contents 02 Introduction 04 Industry and invention 06 A history of invention in the heart of the UK 08 The Silk Mill – Derby’s largest employer

10 Derby: planes, trains and automobiles 12 Rolls-Royce – a great British brand gone global 16 Students take flight with Rolls-Royce 20 Bombardier building trains round the clock and round the world 22 Networking the region 24 The car industry – holding on through recession

26 Reinventing for a greener world



28 East Midlands – Britain’s largest freight airport



30 Global commerce revitalises the local economy

32 Starting small – growing global 34 Pennine Healthcare – a family business competing on a global stage 38 A creative culture in the East Midlands 40 Creativity in a digital world 42 World culture comes to the East Midlands 46 ‘Up-skilling’ at Derby University 48 Young talent stepping up 52 Building blocks for the future 53 The world is changing

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FutureStory Derby and the East Midlands

Its prime location in the geographical heart of the UK, an abundance of natural resources and a streak of inventiveness put the East Midlands at the centre of the Industrial Revolution. These advantages gave rise to a thriving industry base which still powers the region.

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skilled workforce grew up in the 1700s around Derby’s Silk Mill – which has a claim to be the country’s very first factory. As one industry declined, new ones took over: silk gave way to clockmaking, iron-casting and engineering in a chain of events leading up to the present day. International companies have moved into cities around the region – AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce, Speedo, Pepsi and Toyota are all in the East Midlands, employing thousands of people. Not everyone knows, for example, that Derby makes more goods to sell abroad than anywhere else in England – making it one of the cities most plugged into the global economy. The hundreds of engineering businesses based all over the region are inventing new technologies and new ways of doing things. Family firms, deeply rooted in the region, are stepping up to compete with companies in China and India. Small creative start-up businesses are taking advantage of new digital technologies to serve customers all over the world. International brand names are coming into Derby’s new Westfield centre. And local schools and colleges are adapting to equip young people for the jobs and industries of the future. So everywhere you look today you begin to see the future story of Derby and the East Midlands.

Derby, Leicester and Nottingham are the economic ‘motors’ of the East Midlands – with half the population and 45% of the region’s businesses. Over the last 25 years manufacturing jobs in the East Midlands have fallen by 40% to 300,000 – and service jobs have risen 866% to almost 1.5 million.

Inventions which have come out of the East Midlands include the jet engine, Ibuprofen, DNA fingerprinting and the MRI scanner.

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nvention has been the life blood of the East Midlands in the past, and will be its life blood for the future.

Industry and invention

Lincoln

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A history of invention in the heart of the UK The East Midlands – encompassing Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and most of Lincolnshire – is a region of contrasts. The breath-taking natural landscapes of the Peak District National Park and Sherwood Forest sit alongside global engineering and high-tech modern manufacturing.

Now

Then

Now

Then

Now

Then

Now

Lincoln became an engineering powerhouse. The battle tank was invented here during the First World War. And today German engineering company, Siemens, is a major economic force, alongside tourism and agriculture.

Nottingham NottinghamÕ s famous Lace Market area recalls the cityÕ s global trade in fine cloth. Today, the city is better known as the home of global fashion mogul Paul Smith.

The regionÕ s historic wealth came from productive land and sheep farming, and plentiful natural resources. In the 19th Century, the market towns of the East Midlands were transformed into industrial centres at the heart of the Industrial Revolution Ð with some of the worldÕ s most important workshops, producing everything from coal to trains to shoes.

Then

Then

Now

Leicester During the 19th Century, the boot and shoe trade flourished in Leicester Ð there were just over 400 boot and shoemakers in the city at the start of the 1830s. Thirty years later by the 1860s, that number had hit almost 3000.

Derby

Northampton

From the Silk Mill to Rolls-RoyceÕ s jet engines, Derby has prospered over the centuries as a centre of invention, engineering and trade. Today Derby exports more per person than any other place in England.

The townÕ s commercial fame was built around the shoe and boot trade Ð featured in the recent film Ô Kinky BootsÕ . By the late 19th century more than half the men in the town worked in the shoe trade.

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The Silk Mill – Derby’s largest employer Built in the 18th century, Derby’s Silk Mill is an early example of the region’s trading links. Roger Shelley, Keeper of the Mill, tells the story: “We think the Silk Mill was the country’s first factory, set up when the Lombe brothers spotted the opportunity to use an undeveloped island site in the River Derwent to create a water-powered mill. By the time they had finished with it, it was the centre for an Industrial Revolution.

The patent which Thomas Lombe obtained “By the 1730s almost one in ten Derby residents worked here, spinning miles of thread every day. I liken it to RollsRoyce today who employ just about the same proportion of the city’s residents in often highly skilled work. “The raw materials came from Persia, which we know today as Iran, and China in the Far East, via the Silk Road. The founding Lombe brothers – entrepreneurs of their time – had great success by copying Italian technology, which was much more sophisticated than existing English

We need people who are capable of picking up the raw materials that are in front of them, rearranging them in an imaginative way and using that to boost innovation in the future. techniques. But it wouldn’t have worked without a man called George Sorocold, who is regarded as the country’s first hydraulic engineer and a pioneer of the city’s engineering tradition. He was experienced in making machinery like water wheels and he used that rotary motion to create power that could drive machines inside the factory .”

“For 40 years the silk mills were the largest employer in Derby, then silk production went into rapid decline as cheap cotton became popular. But it didn’t matter because by then Derby was known as an engineering town. The railways took over as the biggest employer and local people switched to making machine parts and engineering tools. “Later, iron products made in Derby were exported around the world. One company, George Fletcher, made machinery for refining sugar cane which was exported for use in the Caribbean – you can still find pieces of it discarded in the jungle. Andrew Handyside, another iron company, was best known for making red pillar boxes. And there are still examples of their products in South America, South Africa, and anywhere that Britain had a colony. “I think the Silk Mill shows us that if you’ve got the intelligence to spot an opportunity, you can use that to your advantage – and that’s really what we need today. We need people who are capable of picking up the raw materials that are in front of them, rearranging them in an imaginative way and using that to boost innovation in the future.”

in 1718 set out the value of his innovation:

...three sorts of engines never before made or used within this our Kingdom of Great Britain, one to wind finest raw silk, another to spin and the other to twist the finest Italian raw silk into organzine in great perfection... by which means many thousand families of our subjects may be constantly employed in Great Britain, be furnished with silks of all sorts of the manufacture of our subjects, and great quantities exported into foreign parts by being made as good and cheap as any foreign silk can be. That was Lombe’s recipe for success in the eighteenth century: new technology, new jobs, exotic consumer products, competitive pricing and aspirations for global trade. He could have been describing the essential ingredients of today’s successful businesses.

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he region’s global engineering giants employ thousands of people directly – and are at the centre of a network of hundreds of smaller businesses which make up their supply chains across the region.

Derby: planes, trains and automobiles

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Rolls-Royce – a great British brand gone global Over 12,000 people work for Rolls-Royce in Derby and it is the city’s biggest employer – nearly everyone in the city knows someone who works there. The company’s base in Derby also generates about 15,000 jobs in the local companies which supply them throughout the region. Rooted in the heart of the industrial East Midlands, Rolls-Royce is surely one of the most famous British brand names in the world.

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ts transformation into a fully-fledged global business is one of the UK’s corporate success stories. About 85% of its revenues now come from abroad. It operates in 50 countries and of the 39,000 Rolls-Royce employees today, 40% are outside the UK – compared to only 7% two decades ago. And how international the business is today shows up in the way people work together across the world. Engineering teams based in different locations in the country and on opposite sides of the globe are all focused on delivering competitive advantage and one of the key areas of focus is reducing noise and carbon emissions. As Naresh Kumar, Rolls-Royce’s Head of Environmental Strategy, puts it, “Many of our engineers have to work across global boundaries of language and culture, technology and time zones.” A state-of-the-art global operations room has been built in Derby to monitor the performance of 3,500 jet engines continuously. A plane in flight can beam data back to Derby from anywhere in the world to get questions answered and problems solved, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This shift to global servicing – rather than simply manufacturing product – is a transformation in how Rolls-Royce does business. It may take up to 15 years to design and build an aircraft in the first place, and then it has around 25 years or so of flying life. So more than half of Rolls-Royce’s revenue now comes from providing, what they call, ‘aftermarket’ services to the fleet of planes which carry their engines. Of the world’s 50 leading airlines, 45 use Rolls-Royce engines and they expect to be serviced anywhere, anytime reliably. So selling product and selling services are now inextricably inter-linked.

One of the things young engineers get excited by in RollsRoyce when they join the team is that we have a huge focus on research. So they get to participate in challenging projects.

Yet the forces driving the globalisation of Rolls-Royce are not just visible in the geographic reach of the operations. As for all companies these days, their success in the global economy

14 depends on the ability to harness new technologies fast and the creativity to invent – and re-invent. Research and development spend in Rolls-Royce last year was an enormous £885 million. Their philosophy is ‘Design once, use many times’ and their business is ‘power systems’. So when they make an advance in, say, computational fluid dynamics to improve the efficiency of their aerospace engines, that same methodology may be applied to marine engines that power the 30,000 ships on which they are installed.

that trend could reverse. So perhaps engineering may prove to be a beneficiary of the recession, in this respect at least.

“One of the things young engineers get excited by in Rolls-Royce when they join the team is that we have a huge focus on research. They get to participate in challenging projects” says Naresh Kumar. “We spend 10% of our revenues on R&D and much of that is directed at creating the foundation for environmentally-friendly technology.”

Like almost all major international businesses, Rolls-Royce continues to work hard at fostering local talent in its home town of Derby. 200 Rolls-Royce employees are science and engineering ambassadors in schools and colleges, 200 more are governors of local primary and secondary schools. They have almost 600 young people on apprenticeship programmes around the country. Naresh Kumar says that, from sponsoring science prizes to establishing University Technology Centres around the world, Rolls-Royce is looking for different ways to inspire the next generation. ”We want to give them some awareness of the opportunities there are for new talent and fresh ideas that will help us develop new solutions for the future.”

But finding enough qualified people to work for them in the UK is one of the challenges Rolls-Royce faces today. A quarter of Rolls-Royce’s annual in-take of graduates now comes from overseas, mainly from Germany and the US. One problem has been that, over recent years, a good number of the brightest British graduates, including scientists and physicists, made their way into the City of London. But, with the crisis in financial services,

Rolls-Royce is famous for its Trent 900 engines that power the latest Airbus A380, as well as the Trent 1000 engines for the Boeing 787 that will soon come into commercial service.

Research and development spend in Rolls-Royce last year was an enormous £885 million.

Less well known, though, is their invention of the tiny turbine blade. Small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, it nestles at the heart of huge aerospace engines. Though it is small, the blade sells for about $10,000. Gram for gram it has a value greater than gold. By contrast, gram for gram a car is worth the same as a hamburger. It is worth that $10,000 because of the complexity of the processes and technologies that enable its functionality.

Of the 39,000 Rolls-Royce 40% are outside the UK.

Rolls-Royce is a wellknown name in Derby, but isn’t the only high tech aerospace company in the East Midlands. Other successful companies include TJ Brookes and Alstom Aerospace in Leicester, and Greene, Tweed in Nottingham.

It is grown from a single crystal of a proprietary alloy and must survive in a gas stream hotter by 350˚ Celsius than its melting point. It develops the same power as a Formula One racing car and endures a force equivalent to hanging a London bus on its tip. It requires the skills of material scientists, metallurgists, mathematicians, aerodynamicists, combustion engineers, aero thermal engineers, stress engineers, manufacturing engineers, process engineers, procurement specialists and

logisticians to name but a few. And it is just one of over 2,500 different parts in a typical aero engine.

These photographs are reproduced with the permission of Rolls-Royce plc, copyright © Rolls-Royce plc 2009

employees today,

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Students take flight with Rolls-Royce Sinfin Community School sits on the site of the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby and the proximity has worked to the school’s advantage. Young students get to learn about engineering by working on real Rolls-Royce engines loaned by the firm.

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he decade-long partnership with the aero-engineering firm has helped to foster the skills and ambition of his pupils, says Steve Monks, Sinfin’s Head Teacher. The company also helps to train teachers and has a governor on the school’s board. In Steve Monk’s view Rolls-Royce’s role is crucial locally. “It has a high quality brand and is a world leader in many respects.”

Three years ago the school was almost entirely destroyed in a fire started by an electrical fault in the wiring. With its burnt-down classrooms now rebuilt, all clean lines and red facades, Sinfin shows no sign of its past trauma. But Steve Monks is used to challenges. Many of the school’s 1,100 students come from the poorest areas of the city, which means that often their aspirations and expectations for their future are pitched low.

We are a small school on the outskirts of Derby. But we believe in educating students to take their place in society – an increasingly global society,

But things are on the up. Last year Sinfin recorded its best ever GCSE results, with 30 per cent of pupils achieving five A* – C grades, and it is recognised as one of the most improved schools in the country. Rolls-Royce offers work experience to the school and hosts the prestigious Young Apprenticeship programme to train 14-16 year olds in an NVQ level qualification. Each year some of the 20 places available go to Sinfin’s most talented youngsters, who can then compete for jobs at the firm. In recognition of its expertise in teaching young people who go on to work in Derby’s thriving industrial sector, in 2006 Sinfin was awarded specialist engineering status. “We wanted a specialism that complemented Derby,” Mr Monks says. “So we implement engineering’s core subjects – maths, science, design and technology – right the way up.” “I think any relationship between business and schools is highly valuable, because it actually gives the pupils a real sense of purpose, a sense of an end gain to their studies. Every time a teacher say it’s important that you do this and do that, it’s never quite accepted and believed as readily as if you get a real person from the real world who’s got a real job who comes in and says the same thing.”

To me Rolls-Royce feels like a local company, even though it is a huge global business because it’s just down the road. Collaboration with industry and other local schools and colleges is essential because by 2010 all students will be offered the new diploma courses. “There’s an awful lot of work needed. But I’m confident that we have good links with employers,” Steve says. “The big organisations need to get involved in developing the career aspirations of young people. They are the employees of tomorrow.” The pupils in Derby’s schools reflect the community’s diversity. There have long been many Indian and Pakistani students at Sinfin and dual-language entrance signs in English and Polish hint at new arrivals from Eastern Europe, while others come from Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the

Kids see a successful company in their midst and know there is something to aspire to. challenge of integrating so many different cultures in the classroom, the school remains firmly convinced about the benefits of multiculturalism. This year Sinfin staff will travel to Jamaica to swap teaching techniques with schools there. “The presence of big engineering firms has an effect on all pupils – not only those who go on to make planes fly. The big companies set expectations that there’s a good labour market out there. Kids see a successful company in their midst and know there is something to aspire to.”

Any relationship between business and schools is highly valuable, because it actually gives the pupils a real sense of purpose

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Neeraj Sunger at 16 is head boy of Sinfin School and a Rolls-Royce Young Apprentice I’ve always liked maths, physics and technology. Engineering was something I wanted to try out so when I saw the Young Apprentice opportunity I thought ‘go for it’. We did electrical engineering, electronics, marine and nuclear. I go to Rolls-Royce one day a week, on Thursday. The teachers photocopy the work you’ve missed in class and you have to make it up in your own time. So it’s stressful but worth it for the skills. When I started going into such a huge company I was quite shy. Now I’m confident, even giving speeches to the whole school. I applied for a job in a manufacturing position. And I’m going to start in September full time. When I look at all the students trying to get jobs now, it’s great to have that security. I was fighting people with degrees, so I felt quite proud. In a couple of years I want to go to university to do aeronautical or electronic engineering. Derby has really good global connections. But to me Rolls-Royce feels like a local company, even though it is a huge global business, because it’s just down the road. They taught us about what they do in other parts of the world. They’re building an Indian pipeline, and they have business connections with Singapore Airlines and Boeing who are all over the world. I’d definitely like to work abroad. I want to go to America, Japan and China because they are strong in engineering.

Kuldeepak Singh at 15 is studying for a diploma in engineering I decided to do the diploma because I wanted to do electronics and I read that you can earn a lot of money. My friend did engineering and is earning £15 an hour. At the moment we are using a design machine to make prototypes and we recently designed a pizza cutter handle. You have to draw it using equations. I messed it up twice and it ended up more like a cheese grater! Having the big car companies nearby has really influenced me. I think I still would have wanted to do engineering, though. When I finish I’d like to design car parts working for Toyota or Ford. China and Japan seem to be the best place for engineering; they are really developing at the moment. In a way I feel connected to India but I’d like to stay in Derby – I’ve got family here. Eventually I would like to start my own business. My dad had a construction business once, I’d like to get that back. And I’d really like to have my own global car company with its own logo.

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Bombardier building trains round the clock and round the world Commuters and leisure travellers across the UK are going back to the train. More people are now using the railways than at any time since the Second World War. “Lots of people choose train travel now because it’s convenient, it’s quick and it allows them to spend quality time doing things they want to do”, says Jon Seddon, Director of Strategic Programmes at Bombardier’s site in Derby. Over the last decade the Government has invested in the railways, and as Britain’s roads become more crowded and congested, companies are putting more and more freight on the rails.

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erby is the rail manufacturing centre of the UK. Since many of the global companies based in the city and the surrounding area have such important global links, new ideas developed in Derby could find themselves on the tracks in Denver or Delhi in the future.

Derby is part of a global family – Bombardier has over 50 production and engineering sites across the world.

2000 people work for Bombardier in the UK – part of a total 34,200 globally. East Midlands Trains – one of the UK’s major passenger train companies – is also based in Derby, employing over 600 people locally. The East Midlands is Europe’s densest cluster of rail engineering companies – with over 230 companies around Derby alone.

Litchurch Lane, in Derby is home to the UK’s major train-building facility. Bombardier is a key part of the local economy, but it is also part of a global company – with its headquarters in Canada, and the executive and engineers in Derby reporting to European HQ in Berlin. Trains have been made at Litchurch Lane since Midland Rail owned the

We have engineers here working on a project all day which we then ‘package up’ and send to our design centre in Hyderabad overnight – then, come the following morning, it’s back with us to carry on working. factory site in 1873, and it has gone through a succession of owners since – including the Swiss-headquartered global firm ABB, and the GermanSwedish conglomerate Adtranz. So foreign investors have long recognised the strengths of Derby as a centre of rail engineering.

Seddon continues, “Because we’re part of a global company we’re able to share expertise around the company. So we have engineers here working on a project all day which we then ‘package up’ and send to our design centre in Hyderabad overnight – then come the following morning, it’s back with us to carry on working. It’s great for us because not only do we have access to a really top quality bank of engineers in India, but it enables us to work through the night, developing designs much more quickly that we used to.”

I’m proud to say I’m apprentice trained, that generations of my family worked here in the past. I think it’s really good for Derby in general and for me as well. The Gautrain project is another example of Bombardier operating today in a seamless global system. They deliver accurately manufactured sub-assemblies and export them as flat packs for final assembly in the South Africa.

In his role as Production Manager on sophisticated modern manufacturing projects like these, Richard Toon is responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly. He says he absolutely loves his job. “I started here as an apprentice. Times were very difficult back then too. The company pushed me and pushed me to further my education. I ended up getting a Master’s degree in business which I was really pleased to get. I’m proud to say I’m apprentice trained, that generations of my family worked here in the past. I think it’s really good for Derby in general and for me as well.”

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Networking the region

A network of 400 rail engineering companies reaches out across the region, exporting to nearly 70 countries worldwide. These and other firms in the East Midlands have grown up around large companies like Bombardier and support their competitiveness – as Jon Seddon, speaking for Bombardier, appreciates: In the East Midlands we’ve got literally hundreds of rail businesses nearby. They support us. We support them. And we grow together. And that means the region becomes more competitive and we each individually become more competitive. This is the most concentrated rail cluster on the planet. And that’s incredibly important and powerful for the region’s economy.

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ombardier’s core business is building trains, not the furniture that the passengers sit on. So the founders of Primarius UK saw an opportunity. Primarius, just one company in the supply chain network in the area, has a great success story to tell. It started five years ago in Corby in Northamptonshire, and has gone from strength to strength. Martin Thornton and Brian Deegan have worked hard to build up a relationship of trust with Bombardier, and from that they have grown their business into a major supplier of seating and transit interiors. They now supply to a range of other UK rail companies, such as Railcare, Transys Projects and Wabtec Rail, and plan to expand even further afield. They already supply to Irish Rail, and have got their eyes on the market in Continental Europe: with Deutsche Bahn and Siemens in Germany, SNCF in France and CAF in Spain. Growing from scratch to 50 employees today, Primarius now has its own supply chain. They contract metalwork, some from low-cost countries, but most from companies in the Midlands.

“We’re in the East Midlands because we can be close to all the main rail companies in the UK,” explains co-founder and Operations Director, Brian Deegan.” More emphasis on rail travel in the next few years, should mean a large upturn in business for us. We would like to continue to grow. We’re already looking at new premises, and we only moved here two and a half years ago.” But not all companies in the rail supply chain are manufacturers. The RTC Group of companies, for instance, has three core divisions: recruitment, training and conferencing. Their head office is at the attractive Derby Conference Centre – in a building that in 1938 was the first purpose-built training college for railway staff. So it is still performing its original function today.

They serve the whole spectrum of labour market needs, from blue-collar to white-collar rail specialists, and technical and safety-critical training for the rail industry. In 2008, RTC trained 2,014 people in rail safety, 2,700 people in rail signals and telecoms, and placed 1,900 people in technical and engineering roles. They have made the most of their chances to expand beyond their core business in the rail industry, and now provide training and technical advice

to the fire service, the healthcare and the renewable energy industries – and through the Derby Conference Centre, they have even expanded into the wedding market. Jon Seddon, of Bombardier, says, “One of the features of working with small local businesses is that through working with us, they’re able to access markets outside their normal reach. In a typical project, we’ll have 60 to 70 businesses locally supporting us to deliver contracts.”

We wouldn’t be able to compete on the world stage without world-class suppliers. And that goes for the small company with five employees, as well as the bigger ones. They need to be world-class for us to compete. And they are.

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The car industry – holding on through recession From motorcycles, to specialist off-road vehicles, from niche 4x4s to heavy duty construction machinery – a wide variety of vehicles are manufactured in the East Midlands.

Toyota investing in Derby 4,000 people build Avensis and Auris cars for the Japanese car firm Toyota at Burnaston. There are over 28 million cars currently registered in the UK, so it’s a large market. But most of the models that come out of the Burnaston plant are exported to Europe and even further afield. The global recession is hitting the car industry hard all over the world. And

Toyota in Derby is no exception. In a market where global demand fell so sharply that there was no more room on dealers’ lots for any new stock, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other car manufacturers in the UK have been forced to make major cuts in production. The economic climate is still tough, but so far Toyota has managed the impact by laying off temporary workers and reducing hours and pay.

Though it’s a less well-known name to many people outside the region, ZF is a German company employing over 60,000 people in 26 countries – it’s also one of the top 15 suppliers to the automotive industry in the world, making driveline and chassis technology. One of their three production centres in the UK is at Lenton in Nottingham.

Since opening in 1992, Toyota has invested over 1 billion pounds in Burnaston, and has produced nearly 3 million cars in Derby – most for export around the world. Last year, the 4,000 people working at Burnaston produced 110,785 Avensis cars and 102,619

Auris cars.

Toyota has invested heavily in its local team and so is reluctant to lay them off, even in a recession. They acknowledge that their long-term competitiveness relies on retraining and progressive investment in the skills of the workforce. Currently, over 2,500 employees are studying for a qualification in Business Improvement Techniques, and many others take part in a range of workplace and college-based training courses. Toyota is still committed to Derby and, as provider of jobs and apprenticeships to so many young people in the city, it is an important asset for the region long-term.

The region boasts over 500 suppliers to the car industry Not every business in the automotive industry turns out finished vehicles. Over 500 companies in the East Midlands play their part in the supply chain of the car manufacturers. They make, for example, electrical and mechanical systems for chassis and engines; they work on technology to develop fuel cells; and, from emissions to recycling, they are contributing to greener vehicles. All of this makes the region a more attractive place for the big car companies to make cars and invest in jobs.

JCB claim that you’ll find one of their vehicles in every corner of the world. The company was founded in nearby Staffordshire in 1945, and is now one of the world’s top three manufacturers of construction equipment, employing 8,000 people in factories in the UK, Brazil, North America, India, China and Germany. JCB has had to make major changes to survive the recession, including some redundancies and periods of short-time working. But despite this, JCB still employs around 3,000 people in the East and West Midlands, including a substantial factory in Foston, Derbyshire. Part of the firm’s strategy to survive the recession has been their special training programme with Derby College. US firm Caterpillar is another international manufacturer of big construction equipment with operations in the region, based in Desford, Leicestershire. Caterpillar also used training courses to support staff through short-time working, and has had to lay off around 250 workers in the last nine months.

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Reinventing for a greener world Society is having to adapt to the challenges of climate change. In the future we need to be flying in planes with more efficient engines, driving greener cars, and increasingly going back to the train. So the manufacturing companies in the East Midlands, which play such a significant role in the transport industries worldwide – and drive the local economy – are already working hard to deliver ‘greener’ solutions. Rolls-Royce believes that technology has a central role to play in finding answers to the climate change challenge. So, of the £885 million the company invested in research and development last year, almost two thirds is focused on finding new environmental solutions. Since commercial aviation began in the 1950s, they have helped to reduce fuel burn per passenger kilometre in aircraft by 70%. So inventing new ways to make their engines more environmentally friendly is not new to them. But global warming is now a real threat to the planet, which gives their efforts a new urgency. Passengers are concerned about their carbon footprint – but demand for air travel is still growing. Governments all over the world are making commitments to cut C02 emissions. When the new ‘Trent 1000’ engine goes into service on the Boeing 787, it will be 12% more efficient than its predecessor the ‘Trent 800’, which went into service in 1996. So Rolls-Royce is optimistic that it is possible to make further improvements in fuel efficiency in the future. In their marine business, they are seeking inspiration from the natural world. The motion of a fish tail – tuna fish specifically – is one of the most efficient hydrodynamic systems on the planet; far beyond what any man-made system can achieve today. So Rolls-Royce researchers are on a long-term project to explore how that can be adapted as a propulsion system for ships. In the business of research, there are no certainties of success. But the whole aerospace industry is now focused on finding new solutions, which will require a joined-up approach – with success resting on the innovation and ingenuity of the engineers.

Bombardier is working with the government and train operators to design and deliver new, greener trains – using less

Offshore wind on the Lincolnshire Coast Last October, the government gave consent for gas company Centrica to develop the Lincs Offshore Wind Farm 8 kilometres off Skegness on the Lincolnshire Coast. It could become a 250 megawatt project, meeting the energy needs of around 170,000 British Gas customers. The UK’s long coastline means that wind has the potential to be an abundant and clean energy source for the future. The Lincs wind farm would be near the recently developed wind farms of Lynn and Inner Dowsing, and could generate CO2 savings of between 300,000 and 710,000 tonnes each year. diesel fuel or electricity for their journeys. The company’s ECO4 initiative is developing technologies that hope to give an overall energy saving to train operators of up to 50%.

Toyota has fitted all Avensis cars, which are manufactured in Derby, with new CO2-reducing enhancements, as standard. The Valvematic reduces CO2 emissions by 26%, while increasing power by 20%. Obviously, it is easier to ensure that new plant and investment meet the new environmental standards, but Toyota has decided to set itself a challenge. Their goal is that even older-generation facilities, including the plant at Burnaston, will play their part in responding to climate change. They say their strategy is to be ‘lean, green and mean’, and they hope that initiatives like this will serve as industry-leading prototypes for sustainable production.

There were 881,000

jobs in low carbon and environmental goods and services in 2007-8 – and research commissioned by the government estimates that this could grow by 45% over the next eight years. The East Midlands has 3,400 companies and 62,000 employees producing low-carbon goods and services – 7% of the UK total.

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East Midlands – Britain’s largest freight airport

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bove all though, East Midlands Airport is a big business Thanks to the big centre. It is Britain’s largest pure-freight airport. With 89% expansion in recent of the English and Welsh landmass within four hours truck years of low-fare airlines, drivetime to the airport, it is the gateway for Britain’s exports to the more and more people world – as well as the imports used by our businesses and sold in our from Derby, Nottingham shops. Global companies like United Parcel Service and DHL have their primary UK base at the airport, which also provides support and Leicester set off on their holidays from East to other logistics operations, such as Royal Mail and TNT. Midlands Airport. The airport plays a big role in connecting local people East Midlands Airport imported and exported to over 90 leisure and nearly 300,000 tonnes of cargo from around business destinations in the world during last year alone. Europe and the rest of the world.

Over 7,000 people are employed on the airport site, representing some 100 businesses. The express

cargo industry supports over

10,000 jobs in the East Midlands region today – which could grow to 15,000 in the future as global trade expands.

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Global commerce revitalises the local economy The opening of Westfield Derby in November 2007 changed the city’s retail offer overnight. People from across Derbyshire who used to go to Nottingham – one of the country’s top ten retail centres – can now shop right on their doorstep. But shopping is no longer a local business.

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estfield – an Australian company and the largest owner of shopping centres in the world – invested to upgrade and extend the 1970s Eagle Centre. This was the first UK development for the company, which cost £340m in total. The international investment not only enabled the rapid development of a new retail centre in Derby, but helped to improve the streets, pavements and public buildings across the city centre. Nearly 3,000 new retail jobs have been created, with many of these going to local people who were previously unemployed, which will help the centre to have a positive knock-on effect for the whole area. Janine Bone, Westfield Derby’s General Manager, says that quality of service is an area where retailers can offer a point of difference. “Our retailers who invest in customer service skills, in particular, see it as a way they can excel against their competitors. In addition, it’s really important that staff are upskilled to handle IT. The retail environment today involves complex computer systems, for instance, for ordering or tills. Having good skills in those things is becoming increasingly more important.” In addition to the well-known UK names, such as Marks and Spencer and Debenhams, the new centre has brought in a range of international names – such as Spain’s Zara, France’s Lacoste, and South Africa’s Spur. There are now 170 stores at Westfield, 100 of which are new to Derby. “Derby is pretty resilient in the current difficult climate,” says Janine, “The high tech industry that we have here is continuing to attract good orders into the city – and there’s a wide diversity of employment. We’re not just reliant on one industry.” With consumers cautious about how they spend in the recession, retailers have been hit along with the manufacturing industries. Yet, over time, as the economy recovers, the presence of all these big names could entice still more international retailers to locate in Derby.

The high tech industry that we have here is continuing to attract good orders into the city – and there’s a wide diversity of employment. We’re not just reliant on one industry.

Australia’s largest shopping centre owner, Westfield, invested in the £340 million upgrade of Derby’s retail complex. Since Westfield opened, retail spend in Derby went up a whopping £245 million, to £683 million in total.

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ll sorts of businesses will help shape the future of the East Midlands. Some global success stories have grown from small beginnings.

Starting small – growing global

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Pennine Healthcare a family business competing on a global stage

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lmost 300 people in Derby work for Pennine Healthcare. Still a family business, run by Liz Fothergill whose father founded it over forty years ago, it has grown into a successful international manufacturer. On any given day, Pennine makes over 300,000 plastic products, such as surgical suction tubes or oxygen catheters for use in operating theatres or intensive care units. And they produce a wide range of what are called ‘custom procedure packs’ – with everything you might need for a particular surgical procedure; a coronary by-pass or C-section delivery, for instance. “Pennine came out of engineering in the late 60s, quite by accident”, says Liz Fothergill, “because of a walking stick with three prongs on the end that was developed by my father for his mother who had terrible arthritis and couldn’t pick up her knitting wool off the floor. Being the entrepreneur he was, he thought, “Well, let’s see if we can sell a few.” We had this little mail order advert and we used to sell them for 7s 6d, I think it was. So my childhood was spent writing out envelopes to send these walking sticks to people who sent in postal orders.

“When it was written up in a healthcare journal, one of the very first importers of plastic medical disposables from Sweden, happened to see it and contacted my father to ask if he knew anything about injection mouldings and plastics. He said, “No, but I’ll learn.” Because that’s the sort of person he was. So within about a year, we’d all got involved in plastics, extrusion, injection moulding and fabrication. The very first product we developed was an infant mucus extractor and that product is still in our range today – more than 40 years later. “My father loved the early days, the invention, doing the deals. He would have hated the regulatory affairs, the e-auctions, the hoops you have to go through. But I think he’d have enjoyed coming to a sales meeting and meet some of our distributors around the world; he would enjoy that. “I remember the excitement of our first export order – which was to Holland in 1980. It was so important to us then because European standards were much higher than the UK in those days. So we needed to raise our game, from a packaging, a labelling, a regulatory affairs point of view. So once our products were fit to sell in Europe, it then gave us a competitive edge in the UK.”

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The fact is that today all these products could easily be made in a lower price economy, in China, in India and to some extent they are.

Exports have grown enormously over the past five years and around 40% of Pennine’s production now goes overseas each year. “I know how much satisfaction it gives people to know that what they’re making is being used in hospitals in New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Chile and Hong Kong, as well as here. “But the fact is that today all these products could easily be made in a lower price economy, in China, in India, and to some extent are. So we’ve obviously got to keep the labour content of our manufacturing really low. That’s why you see a lot of automation in Pennine. And that’s been manufactured in-house; we build our own machinery. I think our success is that engineering expertise which has been inherent in Pennine’s history.

“But even while we’re automating what we do here, the emerging countries will still be doing it much more cost effectively with people who are paid very low rates to do it manually. So we’ve got to compete through our excellence in service delivery. That means we’re able to offer short delivery times or modification to products, depending on what our customers want. That’s why we are still competitive.

“The world has become a very small place and globalisation has affected us in many ways. Some of them are good and some are much more challenging. Anybody now who issues a tender for procurement of goods, whether it’s for NHS suppliers in the UK or the government of Dubai, they have access through the internet to their suppliers all over the world. So we would be competing on an equal footing with manufacturers in India, China, Korea, Taiwan. So we all have to perform to a similar set of global standards. “You don’t succeed just by filling in a price on the tender and sending a few samples. It’s about building long term relationships with those distributors and adding value to what they’re trying to do. We have lots of distributors around the world, and some of them have been with us for many, many years.

“Certainly we see ourselves as part of a global market. There are the multinationals and then there are the smaller companies like ourselves. And I think we all have something to learn and something to gain from globalisation. And, of course, those new emerging markets, in themselves, are becoming important.” The biggest transformation that Pennine has seen in twenty years was the result of their investment in ‘lean manufacturing’; taking out waste. As Liz explained “It isn’t just taking waste out of the engineering processes. It’s about everyone in the business having an appreciation of why it matters to reduce waste; waste in equipment, waste in machine downtime. We’ve even trained all the office team in ‘lean’ office. It’s all about asking ourselves, ‘Are we doing things just because we’ve always done them like that?’ It’s opening people’s eyes to doing things in a different way. “It has really empowered people who know what they’re doing on the shop floor. Who’ve done it for years, but somehow didn’t have so much of a voice. Now, as part of the ‘lean’ project groups, they can say what they see that needs re-thinking They take enormous pride in that and I can’t over-estimate how fantastic it’s been for us. “To play on a global stage, to be sustainable, you’ve got to be enormously enthusiastic. You’ve got to think that every little piece of business, every order that comes through the door, whether it’s for £50 or £500,000, you’ve got to think that

They may only cost a few pence, but they are potentially life saving products.

Certainly we see ourselves as part of a global market. There are the multinationals and then there are the smaller companies like ourselves. it’s something precious. And that there’s somebody out there who wants that business. Don’t forget that you’re only as good as your last order.” Delphine Demily-Pickett is Pennine’s Export Manager. She travels frequently, building relationships with distributors and customers. “I’m from France but have lived here for over fifteen years. I can say to other young people that it is an amazing experience to move overseas. When I came here, I felt very welcome both personally and professionally. And when I go back to France, people are so proud that I have gone abroad and have lived something different.” Delphine is valued by the company for her ability with languages but also for her appreciation of the nuances of different cultures and different countries. “We need a good office team with language skills. You need a fantastic regulatory affairs team too,” says Liz. The range of skills needed across the Pennine business is very broad. “It would be hard to imagine now employing somebody who didn’t have basic IT skills, though sadly not everyone has them. And we need sales people. Very importantly, we need skilled chartered engineers and software specialists. People who can look at a new product we’ve been asked to devise, and from something very simple build it into something

we can actually manufacture. And we need people with clinical skills to understand the basics of surgery and biology.” Liz is emphatic that her need for skilled people has risen over the years and will continue to rise. “After all, these are healthcare products. They may not cost hundreds of pounds, they may only cost a few pence, but they are potentially life saving products. And people have to be trained in that and they have to understand the full gamut of what they are doing. “Going back 35 years, I didn’t expect to be doing this job. I trained as a librarian. I came here for a six-week summer holiday job. So to me it’s been the most wonderful career. I could never have imagined doing anything as exciting.”

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A creative culture in the East Midlands The creative industries in the UK punch above their weight, representing more that 7% of the economy today. Everyone associates the East Midlands with engineering strength, but creative firms are beginning to bubble up across the region.

Did you know? Around 15,000 people in Nottingham work in creative jobs Ð and the city has around 3,700 students in creative arts and communications. Local fashion designer Paul Smith, born in Beeston, founded his own fashion label which has become a world-renowned brand. He was knighted by the Queen in 2000. The Games

Workshop has grown to be the world leader in tabletop fantasy and futuristic battle games. When Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery opens in Autumn 2009, it will be one of the largest spaces of its kind in the UK.

Alexander Taylor studied furniture and product design at Nottingham Trent. His famous ‘Fold’ lamp is now in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame is a Derby girl. She was developed by Derby company Core Designs, based at Pride Park, in the late 1990s Ð but left to go to the US on a franchise in 2003. She has become the most famous female videogame character, according to The Guinness Book of World Records.

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Creativity in a digital world Twenty-seven small creative companies – from animation to textiles, to digital photography and film-making – have their home at Friar Gate Studios, a purpose-built facility in Derby city centre, open since 2006. The centre was developed by Derby City Council, the East Midlands Development Agency, and the Derby and Derbyshire Economic Partnership, and supported by other local institutions, like Rolls-Royce, as a creative hub for the city. Delta Echo Media

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shley Sims is a one-man band – inventor, television producer and salesman all rolled into one. Working out of Friar Gate Studios, Ashley works with companies across the UK. “Right now, I’m producing an angling show – angling’s the biggest participatory sport in the UK. I’ve always been based in Derby – it’s a beautiful area. But all my clients are national and international. If you come up with creative ideas, you need to get out and about to spread them. Over time, this will help to bring up the area as well. The world is getting more competitive, so the better you are, the better your chance at survival. In the creative industries, this means being ready to adapt – and to do more freelance work.”

It is a turning point at the minute because there are quite a few creative businesses here within Friar Gates, but I think there will be more to come. “I’d say, ‘If you’re thinking about setting up your own business, go for it because you don’t know until you try. I thought that I’d have to be a salesperson, I’d have to be a sharp sort of double glazing salesman type, really pushing. But you don’t need to be that way. You just need to naturally be able to sell your business, which we’ve done so far and hopefully we will continue to do in years to come.” Andrew, Mark and Ashley see their businesses as the start of something in the region. “It is a turning point at the minute because there are quite a few creative businesses here at Friar Gate, but I think there will be more to come.”

Word of Mouth Creative

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adio veterans Andrew Upton and Mark Burrows started Word of Mouth Creative – an audio production company – two years ago. Worried that worldwide changes in the radio industry could make them redundant, they decided to take the plunge and start up their own business in their hometown. “Derby was a great location to start a creative company because of Friar Gate Studios and the support available to us. We were one of the first tenants in Friar Gate Studios, and it was a great place to get started; they helped us with the installation of our technology,” says Mark Burrows, “and since we’re in a nice building in a great location, we get noticed”. The budding business – which includes radio commercials, museum voice-overs, podcasts and websites – reaches far beyond Ford Street in Derby city centre.

clients from Brighton to Sierra Leone in Africa. We have clients we’ve never seen or met, around the world. To make our products, we work with people from Australia to Spain to Nottingham down the road. It’s down to technology,” explains Andrew Upton. “These days we record everything remotely and everything is delivered via ISDN lines. And delivering audio via MP3s and all of that kind of thing has had an influence. The internet has basically enabled us to work all over the world.” “My business partner and I were both local lads. For what we do, technologically we don’t have to be here; we could be anywhere in the world. But everybody we know and love is here in Derby. Gone are the days when you got an apprenticeship and retired from the same company at 65. In recent years we’ve seen lots of small businesses spring up from people who thought they had jobs for life but then they find they don’t so they have to go out and do something of their own, which is exactly what we did.”

We’re based here in Derby but none of the people we work for are actually in Derby believe it or not. We’ve got

In recent years we’ve seen lots of small businesses spring up from people who thought they had jobs for life but then they find they don’t so they have to go out and do something of their own, which is exactly what we did.

World culture comes to the East Midlands Quad, Derby’s brand-new cultural centre, is one of the newest additions to the local scene. Occupying a prime position on the Market Place, it opened in September 2008. While Quad’s modern architecture has attracted controversy, the venue is hoping to bring more global culture to Derby – including films, exhibitions and workshops.

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his year’s Format 09 – an international festival of photography staged around the city centre – brought in artists from countries as diverse as China, Turkey, Switzerland and Israel, as well as the UK. Quad is about to host an artist in residence from Chongqing in South West China, who will create a brand new show for the gallery. Keith Jeffrey, Director of Quad, has been in the city three years and feels he has already seen a change in attitudes “People have a much broader Graham Lucas Commons

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What places like Quad do is make creativity visible. It’s a point where people can find out what’s going on and go to get inspired.

Graham Lucas Commons

Jane & Louise Wilson by Jerry Hardman Jones

Graham Lucas Commons

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vision now than they used to. They want different things from where they live. With the internet and through social networking and TV and so on, it’s far easier to reach out to the world than it ever has been.” Quad’s workshops and training sessions attract lots of young people. “The biggest buzz was the Quad’s young people’s forum the other week. It was fantastic to see a bunch of kids who hadn’t used a camera before coming here, showing their own film. They got so excited by what they had done. It was a really emotional experience Since opening in 2008, for all of us.” Quad the Quad has had 150,000 offers a whole range people visit – 20% more of courses from family friendly than expected. activities where you can make animated Christmas cards right through to video editing courses for professionals. But in a community that is so heavily associated with engineering, does Keith Jeffrey feel that a cultural centre will ever be really appreciated? “I think engineering and culture are just different forms of creativity. Places like

Rolls-Royce and Bombardier and Smiths of Derby, these are engineering companies who put creativity at the heart of their process – perhaps they don’t put it like this – but they are making things, and doing new things in a way which gives them competitive advantage. Places like Quad give a different spin on that. What we need to do is foster a culture where creativity and talent can really flourish within the city.” Quad’s first show was almost entirely about Derby’s engineering heritage and Keith Jeffrey sees that an inspiration for today. “In terms of the knowledge economy, the digital economy and that whole world, it is all about one form of creativity or another. Places like Quad are crucial to that. We’re helping people shape their own destiny, giving them skills and identity, and most of all, giving them hope and opportunity”. “What places like Quad do is make creativity visible. It’s a point where people can find out what’s going on and go to get inspired.”

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‘Up-skilling’ at Derby University With campuses in Chesterfield and Buxton, as well as Derby, Derby University provides flexible courses to 20,000 students, sixty per cent of whom are mature students. So, for many of them, getting a degree is a matter of juggling a course with a family and a job.

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ick Bray, who works for Hanson Redbank locally, is one of the University’s parttime mature students who picked up his studies to help him progress at work. “When I took on a management role, I hit a plateau. I needed to gain additional skills and industry knowledge to do my job better. In my industry, knowledge has traditionally been passed on from generation to generation, but times have changed. Now, it’s more specialised. There are different technologies and greater competition from cheaper sources to contend with. So my manager put me on an NVQ3 course in clay technology at Doncaster College in 2006. When that finished, I started a university foundation degree at University of Derby. It’s a management course specific to our industry where you learn both on-site and from books.”

25% of people in the East Midlands have a university degree, but 13% leave school with no qualifications.

64% of all employees in the region participated in training in 2007.

Making it easier for business to provide training Thanks to £12 million of funding from the Higher Education Funding Council and the East Midlands Development Agency, the University has recently established a new corporate initiative which is all about making it easier for businesses to provide training for their employees. Paul Wilkinson, Corporate Sales Director, joined the university after twenty years in businesses, with big brand names such as Bass and Mars. “We’re very fortunate in this region because of the number of companies which are very international in their outlook. Clearly, the agenda for today’s business is how to adapt to change and globalisation; the impacts of that are felt everywhere. So one of the things we’d like to do is help transfer the skills that those bigger companies have into some of the smaller ones to help them compete.” At a time when a business can no longer think within national boundaries, people are having to think internationally about what it will take for them to compete in this new environment, he says. “That’s why I believe that skills are the start of everything.” In his nine years at Hanson Redbank, Nick Bray has seen some of those shifts happen first hand. “It was a family-owned business when I started nine years ago, but now it’s a global company. First we were taken over by Hanson in 2006, and then Heidelberg Cement from Germany took over Hanson. Today, we’re one of the world’s largest

manufacturers of building materials. In the day-today sense, my working life still feels relatively local, but we’re part of such a vast company now.” Earlier this year, the Derby University launched a government backed skills development fund of £250,000, dedicated to helping local companies offer training opportunities, even in the current economic recession. Paul Wilkinson detects a difference in the responses of businesses in this recession, compared to previous downturns. “They are taking a different view on what they are cutting back on and what they are not. We are seeing a lot more companies working very collaboratively with their employees. Where in past times, maybe, training would have been one of the first budgets to be cut, this time people are actually saying that they need to use this time to train their staff into areas which will be important in the upturn.” Paul has already worked for five different companies in his own career and sees that as the way working life will increasingly be. “The need for re-skilling is a fact of life for today’s workforce.”

One of the things we’d like to do is help transfer the skills that those bigger companies have into some of the smaller ones to help them compete.

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Young talent stepping up New Roundhouse development for Derby College Derby College’s £46 million development at Pride Park opens in September 2009. Derby College is embarking on a new drive to boost the local economy, by increasing science and technology skills and promoting entrepreneurship. The Roundhouse has transformed a massive rail repair shed into a state-of-theart facility offering practical courses in everything from engineering and construction to design. And more locallyfocused trades will be catered for too, like care, catering and beauty. Many students are studying courses funded by local engineering companies.

Ashley Bramley at 21 has high ambitions for his future Having the Higher National Diploma will allow me to apply for higher jobs. At Rolls-Royce I’m working on the SUV, a new plane engine that’s going to get a lot of attention when it’s finished. Every day I speak to people of many different nationalities: Chinese, Americans, Germans. I had to choose between engineering and marine biology. I’ve always liked reptiles and fish. And I’m already in the process of setting up my own company selling equipment and feeding for people who have reptiles as pets. I know it’s quite a small market, but I’m a bit of an entrepreneur. I can definitely see myself running a big company one day.

The Roundhouse has transformed a massive rail repair shed into a stateMohamed Ali at 19 came to Derby of-the-art facility. from Libya

“Derby is a part of UK plc. We’re affected by how the country reacts to global markets – for example, the rise in manufacturing in China and India will have a direct impact on us. The only way we can respond is through skills. The fundamental principle is that we’re making every effort to prepare young people for an uncertain future, where they may have two or three jobs in their lifetime. In Derby College, we don’t do anything in isolation. All of our courses are connected to companies, from retail and hospitality right through to engineering. And business skills are an integral part of our curriculum,” says David Croll, Principal of the College.

I came here in September 2008. I was supposed to go and work in the oilfields but I was chosen for this opportunity and they paid for me to come here. Next year I will go to Derby University. If I did the Higher National Diploma course back home it would take four years. But the British qualification is more highly recognised worldwide. It’s very different – back home we don’t do our own research, we just take exams all the time. When I go back, I want to use what I’ve learnt at the college to teach others.

25,000 students study at Derby College, which offers special training programmes to almost 1,000 employers across the East Midlands, training over 11,000 employees every year. As part of its strategy for the recession JCB worked with Derby College to provide training for nearly 800 employees, to improve their skills in performance manufacturing and problem solving. It was one of the biggest employee training initiatives in JCB’s history.

Left: The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

50 Nottingham in the People’s Republic of China The universities of the East Midlands – Loughborough, Nottingham, Leicester, de Montfort, Derby and Nottingham Trent – are all assets for the region and its cities. One of the best-known is Nottingham University, a member of the ‘Russell Group’ made up of the UK’s twenty major research-intensive universities. Building on its strong reputation in Britain, Nottingham University has stepped onto the global stage. In the past decade, it has expanded its presence in Asia and now has campuses in Malaysia and China. In 2004, it was the very first higher education institution to establish a campus inside the People’s Republic. And today, 3,700 students in Ningbo are studying for a University of Nottingham UK degree. The site in University Park, West Nottingham also hosts two of Rolls-Royce’s prestigious University Technology Centres – of which there are now twentynine in a growing network around the world. Focused on engineering research to support the manufacturing sector, this strong partnership also boosts the flow of knowledge between Nottingham and Derby, and helping create links across the region.

Paddy Murray at 19 was selected for a new international fellowship Last year, he was one of 100 enterprising eighteen and nineteen year olds chosen from all over the country to be the first Prime Minister’s Global Fellows, in a new scheme designed to give young people a close-up experience of life in one of the major countries driving the new global economy. So, in the summer of 2008, he spent six weeks in India:

I had no idea what globalisation really meant for me or for the UK. It was only through meeting people in India that I feel I now understand; I get it. In Mumbai I spent two weeks in a school. What struck me most was how hard they work compared to us. Not once did I see a teacher having to discipline anyone. They are so passionate about learning. They know they are competing with the rest of their country and that doing well in their studies is the only way of getting a good job. It made me realise that back here we can get by without having to work too hard. But I don’t think this will be the case in 10 or 20 years from now. We need a reality check.

The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

In 2004 Nottingham University was the very first higher education institution to establish a campus inside the People’s Republic. Today 3,700 students in Ningbo are studying for a University of Nottingham UK degree.

These days companies know that they can outsource to places like India and tap into millions of dedicated workers. I spent two weeks at Shell’s research centre in Bangalore. What surprised me most was finding that Shell hadn’t located there to sell petrol, but because of the talented graduates and workforce they can employ. To be a science or engineering graduate in India is considered to be the best you can get. And although I’m a history student myself, I understand that for the future of cities like Derby and Nottingham we really need to be churning out more engineers and scientists – to match countries like India.

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Building blocks for the future

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any industries and business have grown up in Derby and the East Midlands since the industrial revolution. Some, like lace and silk, are long gone now. Others, like trains and planes, are serving world markets and have global workforces. Like the rest of the UK today, the region is going through a tough recession. But looking ahead, one thing is clear. The work that we do, the way that we live, and the cities that we live in, are all changing. International trade and commerce flows through this region in the centre of England. And over the past twenty years, it has become more and more plugged into the global economy. Literally hundreds of smaller companies are stepping up to fit into global supply chains. It is these businesses that are the heart of the local economy. At the same time, there are fewer of the basic manufacturing jobs that were once its mainstay. So although many of the companies based here have been around for decades or more, becoming a familiar part of the landscape, they are adapting fast to new global realities. Building up home-grown talent will be the surest way to win in a world where the new industries and new jobs will depend on skills and creativity, technology and innovation. It is a big endeavour, not only for individual businesses but for the region as a whole. And, everywhere across the region today, it is already possible to identify what the building blocks of the future will be.

Jane & Louise Wilson by Jerry Hardman Jones

The world is changing The last half-century has seen unprecedented growth in international commerce. Total world trade in 2000 was 22 times the level seen in 1950. Falling telecommunications costs have driven globalisation: in 1927 the first transatlantic phone call from Columbia, Missouri to London lasted 6 minutes and cost $162 – it can now be done for free over the internet. In a ranking of the world’s top companies, the UK has 3 in the top 25. Last year, China had no companies in the top 25 – it now has 4. Investment now operates at a global scale. In 2007-8 there were 1,573 investments into the UK, creating more than 120 new jobs a day.