New Anglia Innovation Board

Tuesday 8^th December 14:00-16:00

By MS Teams

Minutes

Attended

David Carlin

Science Director

Cefas

Madeleine Coupe

Innovation & Sector Manager

New Anglia LEP

Prof. Fiona Lettice

Pro-Vice Chancellor

University of East Anglia

Julian Munson

Head Enterprise Zones & Innovation

New Anglia LEP

David Parfrey

Executive Chair

AIP LLP

Howard Partridge

Regional Manager

Innovate UK

Lisa Perkins

Adastral Park & Research Realisation Director

Johnathan Reynolds (Chair)

Board Member

New Anglia LEP

Katie Snell

Innovation & Sectors Coordinator

New Anglia LEP

Jai Raithatha

Head of Economic Development

Suffolk County Council

Prof.Mohammad Dastbaz

Deputy Vice- Chancellor

University of Suffolk

Sarah Steed

Director of Innovation & Engagement

Norwich University of the Arts

David Tait

Chairman

Hethel Innovation

Tim Robinson

Chief Operating Officer

Tech East

Neil Miles

Chair

Digital Tech Council

Laura Hill

Project Manager

Norfolk County Council

Ian Pease

Business Development Manager

OrbisEnergy

Vince Muspratt

Assistant Director, Growth & Development

Norfolk County Council

Apologies

Helen Lewis

Director of Research & Innovation Division

University of East Anglia

Mark Ash

Executive Director of Growth, Highways &

Suffolk County Council

Infrastructure

Welcome from the Chair - Introductions, Apologies & Minutes

Johnathan Reynolds (Chair) welcomed all to the meeting.

Apologies were noted.

Minutes agreed.

Noted CJ - Green was not to attend this meeting.

Innovation - Council for Digital Tech

Neil Miles introduced himself as Chair of the Digital Tech Council and highlighted the importance of connecting

the dots. He explained that every sector has a focus on clean growth and industries are looking at digitisation.

He went onto to say that he lives and works in the region and has created businesses specifically with an

artificial intelligence focus and he is keen to support the community.

Digital Tech is an important sector to the region. It is not always familiar to everyone but underpins everything

we do. It is transforming industries and is very important in terms of the impact it makes including the net zero

contribution͘ The council’s role here is to support by helping to grow the economy.

He explained that there is a regional opportunity to closely connect ICT digital capabilities with other high value

sectors (e.g. Energy, Agri-food, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Advanced Manufacturing, Ports & Logistics).

The team and Tech East helps to operate the Digital Tech Council which plans for the digital sector in helping it

to drive forward against the Local Industrial Strategy with its own delivery plan.

Tim Robinson Chief Operating Officer from Tech East went onto explain that the council meets quarterly and has

regular communication between meetings. It links into sectors, groups, and Boards around innovation with a

blend of start-ups, mature businesses and academia making up 27 members of the council. It has four task and

finish groups, and each have a theme and they are known as Innovation Hubs, Communicating, Talent and Skills

as well as Access to Programmes.

Telling the story of the digital ecosystem is hard to do as there is much competition in terms of the digital

agenda and leadership and more so now than ever. A group looks at this as well as strategic affairs, there is also

a programme that looks to support start-ups with finance.

Major wins for the Council are as follows:

• Connected Innovation project 2021 (Norfolk Strategic Fund) -led by LEP with Tech East as a delivery partner

• New Digital hub for Norwich -up to £25m Towns Deal funding awarded to boost creation and scaling of

innovative start-up’s͘

• New tech and innovation support programmes: the Tech East 100, Innovation Network (LoRaWAN),

partnership support for EIRA, Invest East

• Major new digital skills projects going live 2021: Digitech Centre, Factory, Campus, Productivity East; bid for

Institute of Technology

• UPCOMING: East of England ‘12 Clusters of Tech’ report with London Tech Week, May 2021; Suffolk County

Council workshop -Public Sector Innovation Challenges/Digital Solutions, Jan 2021

Discussion

The Chair opened up the discussion with some questions:

• How do we connect more with the innovation board?

• How do we connect everything together and connect the sector groups? How do we make sure we are

aligned?

• In terms of the tech sector challenges - what are they and how can this board help, supplement or enhance

the work for the sector?

One suggestion was to connect opportunity to innovations for the region to ensure we are better aligned.

Tim Robinson - listed three challenge areas the board can help with - Growth, People, and Innovation.

Growth for existing tech businesses it is about growth and prioritisation and going after the right opportunities.

People this is about recruitment and now you are competing for talent which we may not have seen before.

Innovation centred around tech adoption that all businesses need to trade online, securely with innovation. It is

hard to ensure that happens when budgets are constrained. It would be good to see SMEs and corporates

working together.

Tech Nation runs a programme called net zero. One growth agency has decided to go after the clean energy

opportunity. Overall, 30 businesses went for the Tech Nation opportunity and only one was a local business. We

need to encourage more local involvement in going for the opportunities.

Sarah Steed - in relation to people and connecting things up what does it really mean? Businesses can take a risk

in innovation but educational institutes with a focus on people are different. New courses may or may not fly so

it is a different set of choices. The Innovation Board could do more to support those processes in getting more

people to see the courses and bums on seats. Need to think how we connect those dots.

Johnathan Reynolds - there are similar conversations around innovation and skills for our key sectors and this

includes research led key skills. How do we support research innovation for businesses?

Lisa Perkins - some of this work has already commenced in the digital tech sector, working with the UOS to help

future proof the next generation. Productivity East is looking into this too.

Q: is there more in terms of connectivity that we can or should be doing - is there a gap that we can support on?

Lisa Perkins - in terms of connecting up the high-profile sectors in the region, we need to understand what

challenges organisations face. What can our sector do to help to transform these sectors? Subject experts in

energy combined with digital experts will help to support this.

Neil Miles commented that technology isn’t there for technology sake, it is there to transform business and

should be used to support port logistics, energy etc.

The BT AI festival runs next year. How we can support this with some of the energy sector? Julian Munson

confirmed that plans are underway for the festival looking at a number of sectors to understand how AI can

support them. Johnathan Reynolds confirmed he is happy to support with this event.

Action:

AI Festival/Key Sectors - send over plan to Johnathan Reynolds for input with

contacts.

Katie Snell

Innovation Board Member Updates

Norfolk County Council

Need to give some thought to the small retailers and SME’s͘ How can we support in their readiness to trade

online - particularly in the post-Christmas period.

Suffolk Council Council

Much has been covered in the Tech East presentation, we are linking up with Tech East on some digital sessions

to help SME’s͘ These sessions are helping them with their challenges͘

Hethel Innovation - David Tait

Continue to provide business support and so far, not seen any tenant failures as a result of the pandemic. New

enquiries have come in, seen an increase in demand for workshop and manufacturing space and a decrease of

office enquiries. Reached an agreement in principle with Lotus to purchase 5.8 acres of land where we hope to

be able to build grow on space which will be part of our incubation offering. Additionally, looking to invest at

Scottow Enterprise Park hoping to purchase Newton House from the Ministry of Justice and also to develop the

Sergeants’ Mess. Continue to work with the Food Innovation Hub and we are also speaking to Kings Lynn & West

Norfolk Council regarding KLIC 2 or possibly a development on the Nar Ouse development zone. Engaging with

West Suffolk to possibly do something at West Suffolk Park in Bury St Edmunds. There is also a possibility of

working with Great Yarmouth Borough Council and Norfolk County Council with a focus on offshore renewable

energy. Our business and tenant businesses have weathered the storm so far. Big challenges are furlough and

Brexit.

BT - Lisa Perkins

A number of companies which form part of the eco-system have not renewed their leases for office space at

Innovation Martlesham, but the virtual ecosystem is growing with a lot of take up. We are looking at how we

pivot with the same impact and how we change the model and offering given the current climate. The Digi-tech

centre at Adastral park is progressing well. Adastral has a high opportunity status and therefore we have had

some sessions with embassies for example, the Canadian Embassy to look at the art of the possible and what the

opportunities are at Adastral Park. We have ongoing conversations with BEIS in terms of a number of different

initiatives at the park, one is our future network in our institute looking at the right environment for industry

leaders to come together for a future network and what might be required. There are quantum opportunities

also. In terms of skills we are pivoting and have created a number of learning modules hosted on the Adastral

website made by researchers, they are homemade blogs and provide information about them and what they do.

Norwich Research Park - David Parfrey

NRP has been providing help where it can to the community, and the park has not seen any reductions which is

positive. There has been a move away from office space, with an increase for lab space and this is ramping up

significantly. In order to accommodate, some offices have converted back to lab space at the Centrum. The NRP

office has been let to another tenant and Centrum is now full.

OrbisEnergy - Ian Pease

Tenancy remains strong with a couple of new arrivals and some companies have grown. Within Suffolk we have

created a small group which encompasses some of the other innovation spaces such as Stowmarket Innovation

Lab, Innovation Martlesham, OWIC and the hub at Haverhill. This brings an opportunity to talk to those

organisations and bring the knowledge and understanding together. It will hopefully be a good development to

help support the Connected Innovation project.

NUA -Sarah Steed

One business has failed within the incubation programme and we have seen some loss of overseas students who

had visas but then went home before lock down and could not return because of COVID. Almost all businesses

have opted not to use office space in future. We have seen some good growth in the animation area and three

animation businesses are doing very well and nationally those sectors have done very well. NU

’s model, the

hybrid teaching model has been well received by students and our estate looks very different at present. The

University has seen higher engagement with students, and this has forced us how to think about doing things

differently. It seems to be a better way of operating.

Johnathan Reynolds said it will be interesting to see what the long- term impacts will look like. How do you get

the collaborative approach if students are watching through their laptops?

Sarah steed commented that Games design courses like remote working but there needs to be more face to face

interaction. Generally, students are being taught in smaller group sizes and feel they get much more value for

money.

UEA - Fiona Lettice

It has been a challenging term with many students to manage and the guidelines have changed frequently.

asymptomatic testing commenced from September which helped to get testing under control with the Earlham

Institute. 15 -20 positives during any one time over term time and 4 positives currently which is a real

improvement. Lateral flow testing has been interesting with little positives, so we think this is not very reliable.

Launch Climate UEA has been brought together to reimagine what we want research to look like for the future.

UEA is one of the nominators for the Earth Shop Prize launched by Sir David Attenborough and Prince William, if

you have climate solutions and want to be a part, then submit them to the UEA. Submissions get sifted and then

selected solutions go to a main panel. Welcome submissions before the 4^th January (there is prize money at the

end - link to be provided).

SuNRISE BID was submitted in November, hoping for the outcome in April 2021. Productivity East is working

closely with Tech East and NAAME looking to grow engineering cohort and competing science industry 4.0.

UEA will be putting on research seminars in January and April, they will be virtual, and anyone can attend. Will

let group have more information.

Productivity East - Bit behind schedule, which has affected construction on site. Hope to open in May with a soft

opening and an official opening in September 2021. Enterprise Centre tenancy has held and virtual has

increased. Co-working at approximately 50 -70% occupancy.

UOS - Mohammad Dastbaz

Very busy in sorting out with students and moving them back and forth. All gone well and the data received

shows the virtual learning platform has doubled. Digitech Centre had a bit of a delay in starting work at Adastral

Park. UoS hope to deliver one key course from Jan/Feb, a Masters in AI sciences. Huge number of applicants

wanting to join the course. Great partnership working with BT colleagues addressing challenges in developing

the projects. Institute of Technology bid, Norfolk and Suffolk did not get funding last time round. Been a major

journey but this partnership has been very useful and positive communication with those such as County

councils, Chambers, Tech East, BT and so on. 2.5k learners in tech areas over the next five years due to this

programme, a major project in this region. It will help to develop the skills requirement for this area. Started

work on a project dealing with the provision of a health centre on waterfront, a state-of-the-art health provision

working closely with Health Education England, NHS, ICS. Hope to be ready in 18month time. Looking very

positive.

Cefas - David Carlin

New premises finished two weeks ago, and CEFAS have had a full hand back of the site. Still working virtually,

labs are open for some operations. New CEO appointed and will start in February. Interesting year - things have

turned around and we are cramming much work in. Some of Cefas team has supported the COVID position with

secondments to government departments including Sage and this has now come to an end. Much focus on

delivery with overseas space and supporting government in relation to the end of the EU transition specifically in

relation to fisheries management.

Actions:

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UKRI and Innovate UK Update

In the last 6 months our competitions team have done 3 years work and have now double the number of live

projects. Live portfolio of projects is now worth £3.3bn. All COVID recovery programmes equate to £2.96m

which has been awarded to 2600 businesses. Codikoat, Haverhill arrived with a large grant, Colorifix based at

NRP had a smart grant with the Earlham Institute with £430K total. Equipmake won a £2.5m grant and they are

really doing really well.

Some people apply for grants, go through the whole process and get an offer letter then back off as they feel it is

too risky for them and do not sign the offer. It is a big deal for some, and some people do not take it up..

Spending review, UKRI combined with UKs national academy settlement is approximately £400bn a year on top

of the current offer, there is much to pick apart within this. Innovate UK has a 12% increase in budget (£490m,

£25m for more innovation loans) and does include the industrial strategy challenge. £150m ventures fund

announced, watching for more detail with a fiscal event in the spring.

Regional event to run next year. Opportunity for virtual event engaging with South East universities and five

counties in March 2021. Currently looking at dates and more detail is to follow. Both LEPs have agreed to be

sponsors and will involve the Growth Hubs. Welcome any name suggestions, we want to get sense of where it is,

a sense of place but without being somewhere (if virtual).

Q: Is there any correlation between those offered grants but who don’t sign and other known factions e͘g͘ a

successful VC raise as alternative access to innovation finance?

One of the Tech East pillars looks at how we can proactively take these opportunities to business.

Howard confirmed that there is much information on grants on the innovate UK and UKRI website, partners can

focus on their sector, filter, and point out what those sectors should be looking at.

Lastly, watch this space for our EEN rebranding for the coming year to make them more business focused and

clearly aligned to Innovate UK.

Actions:

3 Event name suggestions to be put forward to Howard.

All

Papers received from Katie for your information.

6a Connected Innovation

Innovation Prospectus

Thank you to all around the table in helping to shape content for the draft Innovation Prospectus. Need to

connect the fragmented bits of excellence and hopefully this comes through in the prospectus. So much content

therefore cannot publish into one document and is split into two- a high level exec summary being produced and

there will be a microsite which will have all the content on with case studies. Welcome feedback.

Julian Munson confirmed that we need to turn this into a designed document, therefore if any members of the

board have any images please send them over asap.

Connected Innovation Project

We have been successful in securing some Norfolk funding and we have also bid into the Suffolk Inclusive

Growth Fund and we are confident that this will come through. If successful, this will kick off in January 2021.

Tech East will be a delivery partner and it will see a number of events across the hubs and will join up a number

of the innovation hubs too and will hopefully bring value to the Innovation Board. This is a joint project with the

Council for Digitech too.

Tim Robinson gave his personal thanks to Maddie for pulling the Connected Innovation work together. This is

exactly the knitting together piece that is required and will stand out from other parts of the UK.

Innovation Mentoring - Laura Hill

Laura introduced herself as working for Norfolk County Council as the new Innovation Mentoring Project

Manager. The purpose of the programme is to increase the number of applications to innovate UK grants by

businesses in Norfolk and Suffolk and from any sector SME. The project is flexible in a number of ways it

supports bid writing workshops and coaching sessions. It helps to drive success within the innovation of the

grant application. 120 companies signed up to a virtual launch event and we have had 14 applications to the

project and are now starting to have virtual meetings with the companies to understand what support they need

with workshops set in the new year. Hope within the innovation landscape to offer to support and drive

successful innovation. One observation is that companies are unsure what is out there and how they can move

their businesses along.

Actions:

Feedback to Julian on the Innovation Prospectus

All

Forward any images to Julian Munson which could be used in the

All

Innovation Prospectus, part of the Connected Innovation Project

Promote the Innovation Mentoring Programme

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Future Board Items - Priorities for 2021

Lowestoft Marine Science Campus

AI Festival

Freeports

AOB

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