Predicting demand in the skills supply chain to meet future demands for industrial growth

We are looking to share best practice and develop ideas between regions, in particular to:

• identify ‘regional multiplier’ impacts of future growth for sub-regions
• cascade economic benefits from intense growth points across wider regional geographies
• promote linkages between businesses to sustain growth

Every country wants to grow its economy and most see Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as the key

In the context of globalisation and digitisation, this sets a particular challenge for Western democracies, with their mature and plateauing demographies, welfare provision and quality of life increasing in expectation. The challenge is, how to sustain high quality of life at affordable costs by remaining, as required, at the head of the economic and industrial food chain?

The answer, apparent in all economic and political strategies in these countries, is to add value:

• by investing in high level skills and knowledge
• by encouraging and capitalising on innovation
• by sustaining the lead role in creating new products and services for world markets
• by meeting domestic demand for high quality services that cannot be decentralised

How can this be done - and how can regions do it well? The key is the interplay between business growth, innovation and skills supply. Can we find a better way to:

• foresee the way key industries (particularly but not exclusively STEM) will develop?
• understand the skills needs associated with these developments?
• design for growth, so that skills are provided for industry when needed?
• focus, increasingly, on a steady supply of appropriately-qualified technicians and master technicians

Better prospects for socio-economic prosperity through:

Horizon scanning and knowledge transfer (HSKT) - relies on a steady supply of intelligence about the future derived from the work with STEM corporates and converted into meaningful guidance for meeting tomorrow’s supply chain demands for skills. HEIs and FE Colleges are well placed to do this and we will demonstrate how this is best done.

Critical dependencies analysis - ensuring HSKT systems can work. This includes understanding what is expected of each actor in the chain of transfer and knowing which other agencies can help sustain the system.

Enabling business investment decisions - demands a focus on what businesses need in terms of the supply of skills, services and synergy with other businesses. This arises from the work on predicting future skills demands and on understanding the consequences of upstream innovation for downstream manufacture and services.

The Greater Cambridge and Greater Peterborough region has a focus on STEM

Cambridge is an international centre attracting investment, innovation and skills. Yet in other parts of the region there is a struggle to attract business. The skills needed for the supply chain for future industrial growth can capitalise on the region’s assets, particularly if we can see the needs ahead of time and identify growth-point locations that would work. This means:

• predicting demand in the skills supply chain to drive new industrial growth
• identifying the ‘regional multiplier’ impacts of such growth for sub-regions
• cascading the economic benefits from intense growth points to wider regions
• promoting linkages between firms to sustain growth, rather than compete and lose

Building on the New Engineering Foundation’s ideas in, “Inventing the Future” (2013), our project will work with major STEM corporates with an interest or presence in our region to understand

• how do major STEM companies predict the future?
• what impacts does this have for supply chains?
• what impacts does this have for training and skills supply?
• what innovation projects funded by NGOs, HEIs, etc. will impact on our region?
• how will these impacts affect skills demands?