This week the government and the UK Marine Alliance launched a new initiative to raise the awareness of the important roll that the marine industry plays in the UK economy.
Business Minister and Co-chair of the Marine Industries Leadership Council Mark Prisk said
“Britain’s marine industries are one of our best prospects for high value, high skilled economic growth. That’s why we are launching the Marine Industries Growth Strategy to harness that potential and grow the industry by £8billion by 2020”.
This sounds very exciting to me and this has a major positive impact on the UK electronics industry. Much of the manufacturing related to the marine industry is electronics based, from navigation & communication systems through to advanced control systems.
What’s more, there is a great potential for the next generation as Lloyd’s Register and the University of Southampton have already forged the largest university and business partnership of its kind in the UK.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam said:
“As a leading global centre of marine research and innovation, with strong links with maritime industries including SMEs and larger companies such as Lloyd’s Register, we recognise the importance of establishing long-term relationships between business and academia. This approach ensures that university research is relevant to marine industries and that they in turn can benefit from our innovation. We therefore welcome this new strategy for sustainable growth.”
This initiative, you will be pleased to here, is industry and not government lead. It is in my book a great example of how industry can get co-ordinated and then get the government to get excited about industry sectors that are often assumed to be dormant in the country.
This is very good news!
