Delivering the UK industrial strategy

Industry, government, academia and the manufacturing research and innovation ecosystem have come together to build consensus on how to collectively deliver the UK government’s modern industrial strategy.

‘Manufacturing: Delivering the UK industrial strategy’ was held at Aston University in Birmingham as part of the UK Manufacturing Forum (UKMF), a collaboration between the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and the Institute for Manufacturing.

A packed morning agenda included presentations from the Department for Business and Trade on the modern industrial strategy, a keynote speech from Brian Holliday, Managing Director for Siemens Digital Industries, and panel sessions chaired by Sarah Sharples, Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Transport, and Sarah Black-Smith, General Manager for Motion Control at Siemens.

Delivering the keynote speech, Brian Holliday said:

The future of UK manufacturing matters more than ever and it is clear we need a vision.

It is exciting that the industrial strategy is a 10-year strategy, which means the opportunity for ongoing dialogue as part of the advanced manufacturing sector plan.

We need to adopt technology at pace and digitalisation is the catalyst for that.

The afternoon session included a series of workshops of key topics:

• Skills for industrial transformation
• UK competitiveness – the role of technology
• Regulation
• Scale-up and retaining value in the UK
• Infrastructure and place

Established in 2018, UKMF gathers leading academics, knowledge experts and senior figures from industry and government to explore emerging trends and cultivate opportunities for collaboration across the national manufacturing ecosystem.