Digital & Creative Sector: Context & Opportunities

Mark Basnett, Managing Director, LCR LEP

City Region Growth Strategy

Growth Strategy: Vision

“We will build on our core strengths and capacity for innovation to create a globally competitive City Region at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse”

Growth Strategy: Objectives

1. To start, attract and grow more businesses

2. To nurture and grow our talent base

3. To enhance and protect our distinctive quality of place

4. To create more sustainable and high value jobs

Growth Strategy: 3 Pillars

ProductivityBuilding on our sector strengths

Growing successful businesses

PeopleAttracting, nurturing and retaining talent

Employer led skills interventions

PlaceImproving our physical & digital connectivity

Enhancing and protecting our quality of place

Upgrade and rebalance housing

Growth Strategy: Productivity

Build on our Sector Strengths

• Ambition is for each of Liverpool City

Region’s distinct sectors to become a

beacon of excellence, productivity

and accelerated growth

• Investment in facilities,

infrastructure, networks, people

and innovation creating more and

higher skilled jobs and more growth

businesses throughout our economy

• Advanced Manufacturing• Digital and Creative • Financial and Professional• Health and Life Sciences• Low Carbon Energy• Maritime and Logistics• Visitor Economy

Growth Strategy: Productivity

Digital and Creative

• To be a world leader in the

application of high

performance and cognitive

computing and sensor

technology to revolutionise

productivity across all sectors

• To be the best place in the UK

to start, grow and scale up a

digital or creative business

Growth Strategy: People

Improving our skills & talent

• Improve and increase skills capitalising

on existing talent and attracting new

talent

• Employer led strategy will be

developed and adopted by summer

2017 to maximise devolution

opportunities based on comprehensive

review of skills provision and business

needs and opportunities and include:

• Skills Commission• Clear skills pathway partnerships• Improve diversity and

productivity• Innovative scholarships• Common skills frameworks• Capital investment in skills

Growth Strategy: Place

Maximise our competitiveadvantages

• Transport – integrated multi modal transport system; linking Liverpool to HS2; Global port and logistics hub for the Northern UK and Ireland

• Green Energy – become the largest marine energy hub in Europe

• Digital - Ultra fast Broadband

• Adopt a Whole Place approach

UK Industrial StrategyBuilding our Industrial

Strategy

Industrial Strategy: 10 Pillars

o Invest in science, research & innovation

o Developing Skills

o Upgrading infrastructure (inc digital)

o Supporting business to start & grow

o Improving procurement

o Encouraging Trade & Investment

o Affordable energy & clean growth

o Cultivating world-leading sectors

o Driving growth across the country

o Creating the right institutions

Why is the Sector Important?

“Digital technologies are unlike any others – they change

everything businesses do”

a form of basic literacy, a major sector in its own right, plus a

multiplier that underpins growth across all other sectors…

Globally transformational

5 of the 12 disruptive technologies that will change the world/economy

Big data 1 of “8 Great Technologies” where UK world-leading

Our Distinctive Assets/Capabilities

Big Data Analytics/HPC/Visualisation:STFC Hartree Centre UK’s most powerful industrial R&D Supercomputer; 1st UK Power Design & Acceleration Centre; UK-leading Virtual Engineering Centre

Cognitive Computing/AI: Only UK deployment of IBM Watson platform (£200million IBM + £113 million UK Government) Alder Hey’s “Living Hospital” concept…

IoT & Sensors: 1 of only 3 UK IoT tech. clusters; Sensor City incubator JV

Health Tech: AIMES N3 secure data storage at Wavertree Tech. Campus; e-health cluster & largest deployment for a single economy in Europe

Creative Industries Niches: Film & TV; Gaming; Music Technology; FACT

Distinctive Assets/Capabilities

Research Excellence: UoL 1st in UK for “world leading/internationally excellent” Computer Science research; LJMU 8th for Big Data publications impact - 17% in global top 10% (2014 REF)

Education:1st UK Microsoft “Showcase College” (City of Liverpool ), Studio School

Big Players: IBM; Sony; Shop Direct; Unilever; O2 (St.Helens test bed)

Baltic Triangle & exceptional LCR-wide SME base working across all sectors…

PLUS

Regional capabilities and excellence in Manchester etc

Opportunity: UK Investment

Industrial Strategy / Challenge Fund (£2+bn)• Bioscience & Biotechnology

• Leading-edge Healthcare & Medicine

• Manufacturing Processes & Materials of the Future

• New Energy Technologies

• Quantum Technologies

• Robotics & AI

• Satellites & Space Technologies

• Transformative Digital Technologies

• Integrated & Sustainable Cities

• Technologies for the Creative Industries

Digital & Creative sector relevant to all these

Opportunity: Regional Investment

1. LCR Single Investment Fund directly linked to devolution - £458 million over 1st 5 years

6 Themes set out in SIF Prospectus

• Business Growth and Sector Development:

• R&D and Innovation

• Skills

• Regeneration, Development & Culture

• Transport & Other Infrastructure (e.g. Digital & Energy):

• Housing

Emphasis on jobs/growth, value for money, revolving funds

2. £400million Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund

Opportunity: Business Support

• Tech North: championing the sector, connecting networks, case studies, awards, events

• Business Growth Hub: coordinated business support/advice/funding

• Collaborative business-led LCR initiatives:

e.g. Creative Kitchen, KIN, BIMA, e-health cluster

• LCR 4.0: £9million ERDF co-funded UK-leading “4th Industrial Revolution” (4IR) scheme to

transform the productivity of the LCR manufacturing sector using IoT/sensor technologies (Hartree Centre, LCR LEP, LJMU, Sensor City, University of Liverpool, Virtual Engineering Centre)

• Health Enterprise Innovation Exchange: £3.6 million ERDF co-funded LCR scheme to accelerate the development, commercialisation & scale-up of innovative health/care products &services (AIMES, Alder Hey, Innovation Agency, LCR LEP, Liverpool CCG, LJMU, Mersey Care)

• LCR Activate: £3million ERDF co-funded dedicated sector development support &

advice/expertise/events/grants to maximise opportunities & scale-up re. cognitive computing +

HPC/big data + cloud computing + merging data (FACT, LCR LEP, LJMU)

Opportunity: Place & Space

• £2+billion Knowledge Quarter Liverpool, including:

- Sensor City: one of the world's 1st incubators dedicated to creating/exploiting sensor tech. (2017)

- Materials Innovation Factory: world leader in computer-aided materials design (2017)

- potential Digital Innovation Factory (MIF 2)

• Baltic Triangle ongoing expansion, e.g. Northern Lights

• “10 Streets” Atlantic Corridor – creating a new creative quarter

• Edge Lane Sound Stage/Digital Campus

• SciTech Daresbury - ongoing expansion of leading UK science & innovation campus

LCR Digital & Creative Board

The Voice of the Sector (locally, nationally & beyond)

• Strategic advisory body & sounding board

• Sectoral skills development

• Co-ordinate & broker collaborations within and

across D&C & other sectors

• Promote LCR’s distinctive D&C assets

• Oversee development & delivery of sector

action plan

• Identify new funding & investment, finance

and funding streams to support delivery.

MembershipINTERIM CHAIR: Kate Willard, Board Member / Head of Corporate Projects, LCR LEP / Stobart Group

MEMBERS:

• Bryan Adams, MD, PH Creative

• Paul Corcoran, MD, Agent Marketing

• Jon Corner, CEO, The Landing - Media City

• Ian Finch, MD, Mando Group

• Amanda Follitt, Head of Digital Operations Services, Amaze

• Evan Grant, Programme Manager STFC & IBM Collaboration, IBM

• Cathy Skelly, Creative & Digital Investment Manager, Liverpool Vision

• Norman Mellor, Client Director, Central & Devolved Government, Telefónica UK Limited (O2)

• Dr. Katherine Robertson, Head of Campus Development, STFC SciTech Daresbury

• Tim Nichol, Dean of the Business School, LJMU

• Lee Omar, CEO, Red Ninja

• Dan Rubel, Group Strategy & Communications Director, Shop Direct

• Chelsea Slater, Co-Founder & MD, Liverpool Girl Geeks Ltd.

• Jo Wright, Executive Director, FACT

Interim Sector Development Executive: John Whaling, Innovation & Strategic Investment Lead, LCR LEP

Digital & Creative Board Focus

1. Business support & investment

2. Business-led skills & workforce development

3. Access to UK & international markets

4. Place & space

5. Marketing & communications

Next Steps: Realising Our Potential

Action Plan

To turn the Growth Strategy into delivery

Industrial Strategy

Strategy and Challenge Fund consultation

Skills Commission

Evidence based, employer led Skills Commission

Science & Innovation Audit

Focus on HPC and Cognitive computing

Get Involved

What does your business need to grow?

What’s your big idea to transform our economy?

THANK YOU