In conversation with Invest North East England: Local innovation assets are “key” to inward investment

As part of Bdaily’s latest feature, Innovation Week, we hear from Guy Currey (director), Michelle Duggan and Rachel Burdis (inward investment managers) from Invest North East England, with whom we discussed how innovation is attracting inward investment into the region via a multitude of sectors and industries. Read on to find out more…

Electrification:

First on the agenda was electrification, which has made notable progress in the region in recent years, as Michelle was keen to explain:

“The North East boasts a long-standing history of automotive expertise. There’s been quite a lot of investment but that’s also filtered out into the supply chain. We’re working with quite a few companies working in and around electric vehicle technology, but also beyond that in other types of technology that supports wider electrification.

“Hyperdrive Innovation, for example, has been developing EV battery technology, and they’re now looking at how they can apply that to rail. They’ve been working with Hitachi, and have just shipped out a large consignment of batteries for trains to be tested in Japan.

“They have factories in Washington and have been diligently working away on battery technology looking at using existing technologies and processes and how they can be applied and scaled up for different uses.”

Established in 2012, and employing 42 people, Sunderland based Hyperdrive Innovation utilises “market leading” lithium-ion battery technology to enable solutions to challenging applications for electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems. The firm was acquired by California based Turntide Technologies in 2021.

Technology and manufacturing:

Next up were the intertwined topics of technology and manufacturing, the former being a strong area of development within the region in recent years and the latter being a historically significant pillar of the North East economy. Guy sought to highlight some local examples of advanced manufacturing:

“You’ve probably seen the news about the Rolls Royce small modular reactor (SMR) project. SMRs are small nuclear reactors generating just under half a gigawatt of power, which can be located on ex-nuclear power sites.

“In a new innovative way of manufacturing, the components to assemble the SMR will be made off site across the UK, then taken to the SMR location for final assembly.

“They’ve shortlisted three sites in the UK to manufacture these key components; One in North Wales, one in Teesside, and one on the International Advanced Manufacturing Park in South Tyneside.

“So that’s a cutting edge technology being developed by Rolls Royce and they’re hoping to manufacture them in the North East. This is a highly exportable product as well. So they’re looking to export these all over the world.”

“Another example would be the work I’ve been doing with Lockheed Martin Space. We’re trying to attract them into the North East to manufacture satellites, and we’ve been working with them for over a year now.

“They’ve forged some really useful relationships with academia and the North East. They’ve got an MOU with Northumbria University, to work on laser communications in space, so it’s all really at the cutting edge of manufacturing. Our hope now is that they will actually locate an actual satellite manufacturing facility in the North East.”

Creative industries:

Having covered the world of highly technical innovation in manufacturing, we shifted gears to discuss the opportunities available in the North East regarding more creative pursuits. Rachel talked me through some of the support available locally:

“Creative Growth is a business support programme focused on four key sub-sectors of the creative industries, which haven’t previously had a lot of business support. And there’s a £7m pound investment programme linked to it which opened last year.

“The North East is only one of six regions that can access this business support programme, which is fully tailored on helping creative industries figure out how to innovate and what they can actually do and guess what the future of the industry is.”

Film & Media:

As an area which has been drawing increasing public attention as of late, film and media is rapidly becoming a prominent source of investment in the North East. Rachel and I discussed some local examples of innovation within this specialised creative space:

“About £11m will be spent on another support programme to help screen industries innovate and create new future content in the North East. And there are various funds available for them to do that, such as the BBC’s £25m that they’ve committed to commissioning work in the region and the BBC tech hub that we have here as well.

Among the many production houses situated in and around the North East, Rachel elected to spotlight digital production facility PROTO, whose technology it claims is the “first of its kind in Europe”.

Rachel continued: “PROTO has a virtual production test stage here, which is brilliant. If you think of productions such as The Mandalorian, those movies weren’t all shot on set. They utilise this huge LED screen and create the background behind the actors which becomes what you see in the finished movie.

“Now there’s a smaller version of that test production stage being placed into PROTO thanks to funding won via North East Digital Catapult. This £2m piece of equipment, plus a smaller version of the screen, can be used to create new immersive content, new gaming content or new film and media content.”

“These businesses can have access to that ecosystem, and to specialist equipment that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford because it is heavily subsidised. This includes a photogrammetry rig and motion capture set.

“Along with the benefits of funding and business support tailored to their needs to connect them to who they need in order to have everything they could possibly need to innovate to create the next generation of products, services and content.”

Academia:

Towards the end of our discussion, Guy wished to foreground the region’s local universities as an essential asset to local innovation. He noted:

“We’re always trying to attract investors around innovation assets, and the universities are absolutely key to this. For example, Lockheed Martin does great work with Northumbria, Newcastle and Durham Universities. What we ultimately have with the universities, in terms of innovation, is access to very clever academics and R&D facilities.”

To wrap things up, Guy added: “There are a number of innovation assets in the region, so we really focus on using those assets and leverage their support when dealing with inward investment opportunities.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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