UK government acts to encourage innovation

Published: 2-Mar-2002


In a drive to boost innovation in the UK's chemical industry, the government is to set up a Chemicals Innovation and Growth Team (IGT), consisting of a panel of top experts. The aim of the IGT is to help the UK take maximum advantage of new opportunities in the chemicals industry and to work in partnership with the government to tackle the key challenges facing the sector.

It will:

  • look at the opportunities and challenges facing UK companies in the global chemicals industry

  • identify ways of improving competences and skills

  • consider how to optimise innovation and exploitation of r&d in the UK and elsewhere

    • The board of the IGT will be chaired by Dr Byron Grote, group managing director and chief executive of BP Chemicals, with BASF chairman Barry Stickings as deputy chairman. It will consist of senior figures from industry, the customer base, the City, academia, environmental groups and the government, including Avecia chief executive officer, Jeremy Scudamore, Brian Murphy, managing director of Robinson Brothers, Stephen Ley, Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University, and Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the sustainable development commission.

    Launching the IGT at the CIA Business Outlook conference, the science minister Lord Sainsbury said: 'The chemicals industry has been the hidden bedrock of the UK's manufacturing base for many generations and is a highly skilled, innovative, technology-based sector. But if we are to maintain and develop the industry through a period of accelerating global change we must move forward rapidly to exploit the exciting opportunities that exist.'

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