We need to get all regions firing to get the Ƶ economy going – that’s the rousing message from the world-leading engineers who have opened a hub in Liverpool to back hi-tech innovators and start-ups.
The Royal Academy of Engineering started its enterprise hub programme in 2013 to help inventors and academics use their engineering and scientific innovations to start thriving businesses. Its hubs have helped companies to create thousands of jobs and raise billions in funding.
Now it has turned its attention to the North West by opening an Enterprise Hub in Central Tech in Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter.
Academy president, Sir John Lazar, told BusinessLive he hoped the hub would help to generate more spin-out businesses from local universities. And he said he hoped it could also help those businesses to attract more capital and private equity funding, helping the tech economy of the whole of the Ƶ.
He said: “We've always felt quite strongly that we're the Ƶ's National Academy and therefore it's very important for us to go to bat for the whole of the country.”
And he added: “The starting premise was very much to try and build a pipeline for companies which are doing complex engineering, a lot of heavy duty intellectual property. And it's matured into one of Europe's best accelerator programmes.
“Firstly, because we're a charity, we don't take a stake (in any spinouts). So this is all grant-based money.
“Secondly, for the Academy as a whole... probably the biggest USP, is this absolutely unique network. So we are 1700 fellows, half from industry, half from academia, all over the country, all over the world. That's a kind of huge community, very good links into government, into large business.
“That network gets mobilised around the Enterprise Hub, so if you come through one of the early stage programmes you'll get assigned a mentor who will be literally an expert in your field.
“Over the years what's also happened is we've been very good at attracting funding for the companies so you know we've had 550 entrepreneurs come through we're pushing nearly four billion pounds in funding for those companies over time. They’ve led to 6,000 jobs being created.”
The academy opened hubs in Belfast, Swansea and Glasgow before its first English regional hubs in Newcastle and now Liverpool. He said: “The sweet spot is a place where there's a lot of really interesting engineering heritage, there is very good R&D, and there is a good ecosystem.
“And we want to come into a place where that all exists, but maybe our presence here will actually just help them scale themselves in a more efficient and more powerful way. Can we add value into a place which actually has got a lot of elements which are brilliant, but maybe not quite coming together and can we use our network, our fellows, our access to all of our experience to support and help that?
He added: “I think there is enormous innovation, particularly in the engineering space, everywhere. And it's our job to make sure that we nurture and help that – for that region, but also for the country as a whole, because we're not going to get the growth and productivity we need unless we've got all regions firing.”
Sir John said his team had been researching English cities and regions and had realised that Liverpool was a great hub for the North West.
He said: “There's a strong history of bio-manufacturing, there's all the work going on on material science, a lot of interesting work on digital innovation, there is the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and all this links into Gates Foundation and the World Health Organisation, there is all this stuff happening.
“And then we've got world-class universities. In STEM, we've got a very, very large number of STEM graduates in Liverpool, higher than the national average. So it's all there. There's this pipeline of really interesting innovation. And we also have a bedrock of fellows in the area. So we're plugged into the university as well.”
Academy helps film producer focus on social change
Rizwan Wadan may not have brought his exoskeleton with him, but the Lancashire film producer still impressed the delegates with the story of his innovative businesses that are developing innovative new technologies and pushing for social change.
Through his business Mr Helix, Rizwan works on systems that stabilise heavy cameras as they move. His "exoskeleton" and gimbal systems allow filmmakers to create ever more innovative moving shots
He works closely with directors and cinematographers to develop his technology, and has worked on films including The Favourite and TV series such as Luther and the most recent series of Wolf Hall.
Now Rizwan is leading efforts to help underrepresented groups make their way into the creative industry. His Futures in Film CIC aims to help women, neurodiverse people and people from Muslim communities to help develop filmmaking technologies.
Rizwan won support from the academy’s Regional Talent Engines programme in 2023. And he said: “The programme has helped to understand more about not just my business or my technologies, but also about myself.
“It's helped me to become a better leader, it's helped me to look at myself and my technical solutions not as just a service to the industry but a service to society, and helped me structure our businesses as a social enterprise.”
He added: “We're not trying to make a business just to sell it and move on from it . We wanted to be in the industry for the betterment of the industry through our technical solutions, but also through our community engagement through our skills and training aspect as well.
Rizwan was pleased the academy now had a base in the North West.
He said: “You have seminar spaces here, you've got training spaces here, I see a wealth of opportunities to hold events. If you had new ideas, you could develop spin-offs and start-ups, it's phenomenal. I mean the space is amazing.
“To have a space in the North West as well, where we could bring communities of engineers and creatives and crazy innovators and outside of the box thinkers together, I think there's a phenomenal opportunity.”
Student inspiration sparked green tech success
Alex Shakeshaft CEO and co-founder at green technology firm Enturi Solutions, spoke at the event and also welcomed the hub’s arrival in Liverpool – where his business was born.
“Enturi was conceptualised at Liverpool University,” he said. “So we're not part of the university, but we studied aerospace engineering and management here. So we were literally living on Smithdown Road in our fourth year when we actually came up with the idea for Enturi.”
Enturi is developing wind power and energy storage systems that can replace polluting diesel generators worldwide. It has bases in SciTech Daresbury and in Queensferry, North Wales,
Alex said “We see Enturi as the clean tech counter attack to the diesel generator.”
Alex is a graduate of the academy’s Enterprise Fellowships programme. And he said that while the training and the access to funding had been vital for his business, the most helpful thing had been the "community" that it had created. He said it “brings like-minded founders together to not just support each other but to vent about problems.”
