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Productivity

How McLaren is building on Sheffield's strengths to bring in new investment and boost productivity

A number of McLaren cars parking outside a show room

Ideas, people, infrastructure, business environment and places are the five foundations of the UK Industrial Strategy which was published one year ago this week. The newly opened, £50m McLaren Composites Technology Centre encompasses all of them.

How cross-sector collaborations can help us be at the forefront of the AI and data revolution

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: AI and data, Business environment, Good work, Grand Challenges, Ideas, People, Places, Productivity
People sitting in a cafe having meetings.

The Industrial Strategy was launched one year ago today to improve the UK’s productivity, outlined through its Grand Challenges - but what headway has been made in this first year? And what have we learned?

Backing of space sector helping firms to reach for the stars

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business environment, Good work, Ideas, People, Places, Productivity
Computer generated image of a satellite in space

The Space Propulsion Integration and Manufacturing Centre at Thales UK Belfast, Thales Alenia Space delivered the UK’s first all-electric propulsion module designed and built in the UK, the Spacebus Neo Xenon Propulsion System (XPS).

Let’s talk about workplace mental health

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business environment, Good work, People, Productivity
Writing on a piece of paper.

Employers know that when staff are feeling well they are at their best and most productive, so there is a huge incentive to create a culture that promotes positive mental health and helps prevent mental ill-health, writes Public Health England's Dr Irene Gonsalvez on Global Mental Health Day.

Hyperloop: An emerging opportunity for the UK to shape the future of mobility  

Hyperloop pod designed by HYPED.

Hyperloop is a high-speed ground-based transportation system that carries passengers or freight in autonomous, bus-sized vehicles known as pods. Once the technology is proven at large scale and certified for commercial use then it will do more than just cut journey times.

Farming and food and the Industrial Strategy

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business environment, Good work, People, Places, Productivity, Sector Deals
Wheat field

Food and farming businesses support 3.8 million jobs throughout the UK, with 13% of the national workforce employed across agriculture, food manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and catering. We were delighted when the government committed the UK to being at the forefront of the global move to high-efficiency agriculture.

How we can win the AI race

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: AI and data, Business environment, Grand Challenges, Ideas, People, Productivity
Graphic showing how AI is used around the UK.

If you ask the public what they associate AI in 2018 they are now just as likely to say their virtual assistants as they are robots. 

As Business Secretary Greg Clark says in KPMG’s new report, ‘How the UK can win the AI race’ – an explosion of AI is about to define this century - and if we act now, the UK can lead from the front. We applaud the government’s move to identify AI as one of the UK’s four Grand Challenges. 

Universities as a facilitator for place-based Industrial Strategies

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Grand Challenges, Ideas, Infrastructure, People, Places, Productivity
View of Sheffield at night with cooling towers in the foreground.

Earlier this year, YU’s Board of Vice-Chancellors agreed that YU should seek to widen and deepen the collective role of universities in place-based development and the Industrial Strategy.

Recently, YU held a roundtable in Leeds with Universities UK (UUK), which brought together universities, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), combined authorities, government and national research funding agencies.

Universities' aerospace collaboration takes off at Farnborough International Airshow

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Clean growth, Future of mobility, Good work, Ideas, Infrastructure, People, Productivity
Richard Harrington at the Farnborough Airshow.

This week at the Farnborough International Airshow we have seen some fantastic examples of British business and universities working together that have captured the imagination of the world. This shows what can be done when we combine the power of UK business with the research power of UK academia.

How artificial intelligence is helping us get on the Road to Zero

Road sign showing hybrid automobile electric charge area.

The Industrial Strategy offers a compelling framework for the future. At Spark, we’re particularly excited by the focus on the Grand Challenges, as they link closely to our AI-based journey prediction solution for electric vehicles (EVs).