Glasgow needs to be at the “forefront of the fourth industrial revolution” to help tackle climate change according to the city council leader.
Earlier this week it was announced that Glasgow would receive a share of £100 million from the UK government’s levelling up fund from the department of science, innovation and technology for 11 “ambitious” local projects.
The money is to be split between the eight Scottish local authorities of the Glasgow City Region, as well as the West Midlands and Manchester.
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The city will receive one third of the funding, which will support Glasgow’s Innovation Accelerator (IA) projects and address local economic challenges as well as national and global issues impacting the environment and society, while helping to grow more businesses and create new jobs throughout the region.
Two of the projects which will benefit from the funding are the Next Generation Remote-Sensing Technologies which aims to explore the viability of new technologies, and the Modular Chemical Robot Farms for Chemistry: a new University of Glasgow spin out with more than 25 employees, which is developing the automated technology of chemputation - universal chemical synthesis controlled by computers.
Susan Aitken, chairwoman of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet and Glasgow City Council Leader said: “Today Glasgow needs to be at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution, to attract inward investment, compete with other European regions and tackle our key economic challenges, including the vast issue of climate change.
“The scale of Glasgow City Region’s innovation economy already ranks it as a location of Scottish, UK and international significance.
“The Innovation Accelerator provides us with a fantastic opportunity to build on progress made in recent years and to turbocharge a massive step change in the innovation economy and performance – to the benefit of Scotland and the UK.
“It will be transformational for jobs and skills, generate unprecedented private sector investment and will tackle some of our greatest economic challenges.”
The projects are expected to attract further investment and more jobs in delivering on the ambition for Glasgow to become the most innovative city-region in the UK.
All of the projects have been asked to ensure that they have strong “sustainability credentials” with some exploring “enabling technology” to help to support Glasgow’s transition to a post-carbon economy.
The work will take place within Glasgow’s “world class” innovation districts which are pioneering net zero technologies – such as the renewable energy heating system for AMIDS (Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland)and plans for a Net Zero Glasgow City Innovation District.
Councillor Aitken continued: “The scale of Glasgow City Region’s innovation economy already ranks it as a location of Scottish, UK and international significance. And our recent selection by the UK Government to be one of three UK pilot Innovation Accelerators is affirmation of this.
“The IA programme will support the Region’s key economic aims of increasing productivity, delivering inclusive growth and achieving net zero. It will create new jobs at all levels and grow the number of successful businesses. Vitally, through leveraging extensive private sector investment and building on our growing international profile it can turbo charge our innovation economy to the next level.”
With the project selection phase now completed, the IA programme projects will formally commence this spring once they have undergone the usual formal checks.
The final funding for each project can then be confirmed when the programme kicks off in May.
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