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Listen to Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, share her views on the importance of blue skies research, driving innovation through collaboration between research and industry, and the opportunity COP26 presents for showcasing UK technology developments in green growth.
In the Catapult Network’s Supercharging Innovation podcast, knowledge experts and leaders from the Catapult Network talk with some of the UK’s top industrial and academic leaders and parliamentarians to get their views on science, innovation and technology. Together, they are putting UK innovation under the spotlight and exploring the role of Government, businesses, the research community, private investors, and other innovative organisations in strengthening the economy through collaboration. Welcome to the Catapult Network’s Supercharging Innovation Podcast, subscribe now.
The Innovate UK Catapult Network provides a unique combination of cutting-edge R&D facilities and world-class technical expertise to support UK business innovation. Catapults are a critical element of Innovate UK’s portfolio of products and services, where the application of research is accelerated, and where new technologies are further developed, scaled up and realised. The Catapult Network is made up of nine world-leading technology and innovation centres with more than 65 national locations.
Hello, and welcome to the Catapult Network's supercharging innovation podcast. My name's Jeremy Silver, chair for this year of the Catapult Network. In this series, I'll be talking with some of the UK's top industry and academic leaders, business people, and parliamentarians to get their views on the future of innovation. On today's episode, I'm delighted to welcome Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge. Baroness Brown is chair of the Carbon Trust and a non executive director of Orsted.
Jeremy Silver:She was vice chair of the climate change committee until 2021 and continues to chair their Adaptation Committee. Baroness Brown has just stepped down as a nonexecutive director of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, and she also served as a nonexecutive director of the Green Investment Bank, supporting the development of the UK's offshore wind industry. She's an engineer by training with a career spanning academia and industry, including senior business and engineering posts at Rolls Royce and a decade spent as the vice chancellor of Aston Aston University. Julia, a real pleasure to welcome you today.
Baroness Brown:Thanks, Jeremy. It's good to be here.
Jeremy Silver:It's excellent to have you with us. Throughout this series, I've been asking people for their thoughts on innovation and the relationships between universities, catapults and industry. I thought, well, as someone who's, you know, during your career, you've given a lot of time in each of those areas, actually, I'd love to explore with you the importance of of those different pieces in the innovation system. And so perhaps I should start though because you've just stepped off the board of the offshore renewable energy catapult after 6 years, and I think you were on the Innovate UK Council as well. I just wonder, when you think about the role of catapults in the wider context of innovation in the UK, how do you think catapults fit into that wider landscape?
Baroness Brown:The first thing I suppose I'd say is that that catapults are not 1 beast. And I think that's 1 of the reasons sometimes why our politicians and parliamentarians find it quite hard to understand them because, of course, they're all quite different. There are some similarities between, I think, the the manufacturing catapult and the offshore renewable energy catapult in the, you know, they both provide some amazing bits of kit that some companies wouldn't be able to afford and give companies access to develop products that, they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. But, of course, some of the other catapults are mainly sort of analytical and brain powered rather than dependent on physical assets. So they're very different beasts.
Baroness Brown:But I think 1 of their important roles is that providing facilities to to small companies particularly that they wouldn't be able to afford for themselves to demonstrate new products and new techniques and new processes. And also that opportunity that that potentially brings of being a relationship broker between large companies and small companies. And I know that's something that the offshore renewable energy catapult is very focused on and certainly sees it its big kit as an important part of, you know, attracting in the the really big OEMs, the, you know, the Siemens, the General Electrics, the very big players in terms of the equipment for offshore wind. But actually then being able to introduce them to small companies who may have new techniques or new technologies for inspecting their blades or measuring vibration or looking at at leading edge repair or the ability of saying, well, if you're coming to use essentially this nationally subsidized test facility that the UK has funded, then as part of that deal, we need you to be prepared to do some work with small supply chain companies with exciting and relevant technologies. So there's that kind of matchmaking at that end of the spectrum.
Baroness Brown:But I think it's also really important that Catapult sit in that space that does the same for bringing universities and companies. And whether that's universities and small companies or whether that's universities and big companies, I don't think that matters really. Both is really important. But helping to be part of that bridging infrastructure between research and application. I still find that, you know, in in universities, there are still a lot of researchers who haven't had experience in industry who don't understand sometimes the constraints that an industry will have in using their ideas.
Baroness Brown:And so they don't know how to present them in ways that will make it easier for them to be picked up and used.
Jeremy Silver:That's really interesting. And I and I love that distinction that you're making there between the role of small companies in this context and being able to introduce small companies in the supply chain and where the universities fit in. And and at times I think people have have described a quite a simplistic sort of linear process coming out of universities. And I just wonder, you know, given your time in Aston and your your sort of insight into the way the universities work, do you think we should be doing more to to make universities and catapults play better together? And and do we do we need to do that in a different way, do you think?
Baroness Brown:I certainly think there is more to do. I mean, I think from the very early stages of when catapults were set up, I think there was a certain kind of negative feeling in some parts of the the university sector that they didn't engage. Some of them. Anyway, I think, again, the generalization and it, you know, catapults are are all different. But there was a general feeling that they weren't facing and supporting universities.
Baroness Brown:They were almost turned their backs slightly on universities. And I think what I see now is the catapults doing a lot to remedy that and to engage much more closely with the academic base, which I think is a very good thing. I think universities need people who can sort of wander around them and see really clever ideas and be able to say, oh, that could solve a problem in this sector. And, you know, university technology transfer teams and things, they do a bit of that. But, of course, you know, quite often they're quite a small number of people covering university of 100 of thousands of researchers in a whole broad range of sectors.
Baroness Brown:You can't expect somebody in a university technology transfer office to be able to know what it is the offshore wind industry needs or what it is that satellite industry needs or whatever. They may have a bit of knowledge in some of those spaces. 1 of the things we're trying to do in the Henry Royce Institute, Institute, which is the UK's National Institute For Advanced Materials, which which has its core base Manchester, although it involves a very wide network across, UK universities. 1 of the things we want to do there in our hub building is actually have some hot desking for catapults because because all almost all catapults will have some problems that can be solved by materials developments. And getting people from the catapult who understand the industry, who know what the industry is looking for, where the industry's, you know, real challenges are.
Baroness Brown:Getting them in where academics can come and talk to them or where they can wander around and be updated on 1 of the latest developments.
Jeremy Silver:It's very interesting, isn't it? That there's a, a rather simplistic view that what you do with universities is you create spin outs from them and the spin outs are the solution. And what we need to do is have more spinouts and better spinouts. And I think what you've just described is something a bit more sophisticated than that really, because it's about acknowledging the fact that the outside in perspective, the industry view looking at what is being researched and worked on, may have as much value as the outside in view of of, oh, this is a good idea. Let me see if I can commercialize it.
Jeremy Silver:And I'd love to take you further on this because I think well, I I'm excited to hear you say that because I haven't heard very many people talking in such practical terms because it's a practical matter, getting people into the the lab, seeing what's there, and then then what though, Julia? Where would it where does it go from there?
Baroness Brown:1 of the things that, we've we've done successfully at the Royce actually was, 1 of our our board members is the technical director of a a major materials company. We said, well, wouldn't it be great to have some sand pits? Well, we actually pulled together academics from across the UK, not from 1 particular research group in 1 university to look at problems that industry brings in. And so he got all of his colleagues across the businesses to say what were, a, their most difficult problems today, and what were their most challenging concerns about the future. Then we had a a huge kind of challenge of sorting out confidentiality agreements between about 7 different universities and a company.
Baroness Brown:But but, you know, we'll get through these things 1 day. And then we had some really good samples where industry just the company really brought, a, some of its most difficult current challenges, but also some things it was really interested in in cracking for the future. And we got these mixtures of academics who worked in, you know, related areas but in the science end of it, thinking about what the next stages were and, you know, leading to a number of projects that we're going to be taking forward to see whether there are some sort of quite radical solutions to those problems. And I think, you know, that's just 1 kind of mechanism. I think we need all sorts of different mechanisms.
Baroness Brown:First of all, for showcasing some of the things that academics are doing to industry, recognizing that when you get people from industry, they're often really busy and they're often quite focused on what the issues around them are. So you've got to actually package what you want to tell them in a way that's gonna spark an interest rather than what interests you sort of thing. So putting yourself in other people's shoes. And then from that, you know, I would like that hopefully to get industry to think about having an interest in investing in in much longer term in more blue skies research. Possibly, you know, as groups of companies or as supply chain groups, but getting them interested in having an influence on where some of the really interesting interesting science is going because I think we miss that in the UK.
Baroness Brown:And I think that's 1 of the reasons why some of our most interesting science doesn't actually get picked up in the UK and exploited.
Jeremy Silver:It's interesting that you you've talked very graphically there about the needs of industry and and the industry's pace of change and and speed of of activity compared with perhaps a a sort of slower speed inside universities. Where do SMEs fit into that in your view? Is there a role for SMEs in that equation, or is that a is that a just a a parallel strand?
Baroness Brown:But, of course, SMEs, are even more diverse than catapults, aren't they? And you get SMEs who are kind of university spinouts who, of course, speak the language of universities, who know how to knock on university doors and go and see physics department. So go and ask to use bits of kit because actually that's where they've come from and they know how it works. And you get SMEs who may have been going for years and who may not employ an enormous number of graduates who actually don't know how to knock on the doors of of universities and don't know how universities might be able to help them. So I think there's horses for courses.
Baroness Brown:But 1 of the things we found very helpful actually at the Royce Institute has been working with, is it CPI? I can never remember who are part of the the, high value manufacturing catapult. I can never remember its overarching 3 letter acronym. The CPI have been great at kind of doing a triage system for us. We've got a, now, an MOU with them from Royce where SMEs will talk to CPI as a, and CPI will identify the ones you have kind of absorptive capacity in a way to talk to academia and who also who have problems that that might be solved by some of the really fancy kit we've got in the Royce.
Baroness Brown:And then the ones you have simpler, very straightforward problems that perhaps CPI themselves will deal with. And working with CPI on with this sort of triage system of of saying, actually, these are the SMEs who can really benefit from working with the Royce It's very helpful because, again, a a university or an institute like the Royce can't hope to engage with every SME who thinks they might have a materials problem.
Jeremy Silver:I think that's really interesting, and it is absolutely the case that each of the catapults so they're they're all very different. They will have a a depth of engagement with their own ecosystems of the of the range of companies around and that that kind of service. I mean it's very familiar to me as CEO of the digital catalogue but we do something very similar actually for businesses, giving them some navigation essentially across the ecosystem of of, you know, quite fragmented ecosystems, startups and scale ups and so on.
Baroness Brown:And we're trying to do that now with with the offshore renewable energy catapults as well on on the materials front because the offshore renewable energy catapults have got collaborations on on blades and gearboxes and all sorts of areas. And, of course, many of the problems actually come down to being part of the problem is a materials problem. So being able to engage with them when they get to, this is we've now got a materials problem. Being able to kind of link with them and make the facilities and the capability in the in the UK's academic network available to them, I think, is proving really helpful. You know, I think catapults are universities and catapults and other kinds of institutes are learning how to work together.
Baroness Brown:And I think, you know, if we see more of that, it will be hugely beneficial.
Jeremy Silver:I'm gonna change tack a little bit because later this year, the UK is gonna host the biggest climate change conference in the world, COP 26 in Glasgow. And you've been very involved in in this whole area of emissions reduction and reducing our carbon emissions. How do you think we're doing in terms of progress to meet this, you know, really quite ambitious challenge of of 2050 net 0? Is there and is there something that we should be doing specifically do you think at COP 26? What sort of opportunity is it for the UK?
Baroness Brown:It's clearly an opportunity for the UK to encourage others that legislation can be very effective. I think our climate change act has been effective and has maintained very effectively cross party support for a sort of common agenda on reducing emissions. And I think 1 of the the crucial parts of it, which I would very much like to see adopted in our current environment bill is having regular setting of intermediate targets so that it's not just a target 20 or 30 years away. There's every few years there is something that, that governments have to be very focused on meeting. And I think getting the other countries to recognize that that kind of model can be very effective is helpful.
Baroness Brown:And, of course, the NDC process does that to some extent. Clearly, it's an opportunity to show off, UK technology and and developments in the area. And 1 of those areas for me is that I I genuinely think we have a lot of technology and capability in the, hydrogen area. We've got quite a number of companies, in electrolyzers and fuel cells. We've got lots of companies who understand the system's nature of the hydrogen problem whether the kind of physical assets and engineering level or the modeling kind of level.
Baroness Brown:And I think there we've got a chance to do something we missed with offshore wind. In offshore wind, you know, we have the largest installed base of offshore wind, but we don't have a single original equipment manufacturer or indeed, you know, much in the way of developers. Although now we have BP and Shell getting into the area. It's been brilliant for reducing our emissions from electricity generation, but it hasn't been brilliant for big UK companies. So we're kind of trying to make sure we get small companies into and supply chains engaged.
Baroness Brown:But it it's not like being at the top of the tree where things kind of flow down from. And I think in in hydrogen, we've still got that opportunity if we move forward fast enough to be some of the original equipment manufacturers, to be exporting equipment, but also even potentially to be exporting hydrogen since Germany is so very, very focused on green hydrogen and we're not very far away. So that's, I think, an exciting opportunity. I mean, the other area that, we've been doing some work on, obviously, as you're sure you'll know, the Royal Society has been, digital and and net 0. And something I'm sure we're well positioned for is really looking at how do we optimize the energy transition using digital, using data, using algorithms.
Baroness Brown:And I think we're potentially very well positioned for that partly because of, the nature of and maturity of our energy system and partly, obviously, because of things like your catapult and the Turing Center and the capability we have in academia, but also in in lots of tech spinouts in that area. And when you look at the, you know, the benefits of the digitalization of the energy system and the potential it gives for new business models, somebody was talking to me about the new business models for transport for essentially that you you rent your electric vehicle and it comes with free miles. Because the car company or the leasing company has negotiated with the generating company a deal for buying the electricity. And all of that can work but only if all of the data that we have in the system becomes much more freely available and shared. So we get a much more flexible electricity system, and we don't build assets that we don't need.
Jeremy Silver:Let me just come back a second on that because it's very interesting what you've said there. You you picked up on those 2 on 2 big areas where there really is an opportunity for the UK, where where we've got a lot of the capabilities is there and we can identify it. You know, the government has been, very upfront about its industrial strategy and its green industrial revolution and the 10 Boy Plan and so on. It sounds to me from what you said there that you're almost saying, actually, those are 2 big bets, and we should we should bet big on those 2 things. But then you're also suggesting there's a whole hinterland of other things we could be doing.
Jeremy Silver:I mean, it seems
Baroness Brown:to me that that quite often we
Jeremy Silver:get a little bit confused about where we want to go, and we we perhaps lack conviction in really pushing some big buttons. Do do you think that's right?
Baroness Brown:I think I probably do. 1 thing that I'm, you know, really passionate about having worked for for Rolls Royce for 8 years is where is the next Rolls Royce? Where is the next brilliant UK engineering company going to appear from? Because actually, I see so many benefits of having really brilliant OEMs like Rolls Royce in a country. You know, having worked at Rolls Royce, you realize that Rolls Royce got the the pick of the crop in terms of recruiting the very best, certainly at the time I was there, mechanical engineers, increasingly, of course, electrical and electronics engineers, the pick of the crop.
Baroness Brown:And the training they got at Rolls Royce was absolutely brilliant. And then many of those engineers went out into other industries in the UK. And so having the OEM with the really good apprenticeship programs, with the really good graduate training programs, with the really exciting cutting edge challenges using, you know, the very latest cleverest composite materials and things. That produces a resource, which then actually flows out into other companies and upgrades their skills and technology. And if you haven't got that, then you're missing something very, very important, I think.
Baroness Brown:I want to know where is the next Rolls Royce coming from? That's 1 of my passions.
Jeremy Silver:That's a great question.
Baroness Brown:Let me ask you a
Jeremy Silver:bit more about that because, you know, the the I mean you were you were a non exec at the Green Investment Bank I believe.
Baroness Brown:I was, yes.
Jeremy Silver:And in some respects part of this is about how do we grow bigger companies and how do we make our existing companies, stay in the UK for longer before they they get bought and end up serving American masters rather than the British masters. I mean, is there a sort of an investor confidence issue here that we need to work on, do you think?
Baroness Brown:I think there is an investor confidence issue. Yes. I'm also thinking that Britain has been so open about the you know, to everybody, the rest of the world about way we do things that we haven't sometimes felt, hang on, there's a bit here we need for ourselves. And I do think actually in comp in in companies that seem to be offering real potential for for transformation in the energy transition area, why wouldn't we want the British Business Bank to take a significant national stake in them? Why wouldn't we want to make sure that somebody else doesn't see a company that's getting a bit beyond being a medium sized company in a really exciting technology area, that somebody comes along and buys it.
Baroness Brown:You know, why wouldn't we want to think, actually, we don't want that to happen because these could be the basis for an important high-tech industrial future for the UK.
Jeremy Silver:And it's interesting though, isn't it, that many of those acquisitions, happen on behalf of the big tech companies in the US? I mean most of our best software companies and I've sorted a few that way myself, I have to confess. I suppose the question that you you end up asking is well why is it that British based companies are not making that kind of investment into homegrown talent? We're all here. We're all together.
Jeremy Silver:We ought to be, you know, the level of visibility of of these businesses to 1 another should be greater than it is for internationally. So do we need to do more to to incentivize British based industry? Do you think existing industry to support the growth of some of these really exciting scale up businesses?
Baroness Brown:Yes. That would be helpful. You're you're into an area of policy that I'm is not really my specialty. But, yes, I do think, you know, I would like to see more support to keeping these businesses here and keeping a core of the investment British so that they will stay here. And, of course, enabling them to grow here, because, of course, that's why some of them go, isn't it?
Baroness Brown:That they just haven't been able to grow at the pace and take up the opportunities they could see.
Jeremy Silver:Let me bring it back then to something that is possible for me to tell you which is the role of innovation in all of this. And and in particular, you you spent some time on the Innovate UK Council, and great to see the appointment of a new CEO in Indro Mukherjee there. What's your message for Indro? What what do you think, the the innovation should be focused on for the next 2 or 3 years?
Baroness Brown:We seem to be moving from at a at a government level, from a an industrial strategy to a kind of innovation strategy. And innovate, I think, has got to make sure that it it's at the center of that. And I personally was somewhat disappointed that the new DARPA type our new DARPA type scheme was going to be outside, you know. I to me, that's part of the innovation ecosystem. Innovate should be our national innovation agency and therefore it should be part of it.
Baroness Brown:And the very fact that a lot of the reasons why it was being put outside was because people were concerned about the constraints of being within an organization like UKRI. To me, you should have said to Bayes, why do we put all these constraints on UKRI? Why isn't UKRI able to do all these things? Why do the controls that government put on it mean that it ends up having to develop a bureaucracy to respond to them? The very fact that you want to put it outside Innovate and outside UKRI, to me, should have questioned what's wrong with the way we make UKRI behave.
Baroness Brown:Because when you talk to Otterline, it's not her that's putting constraints on things. You know, I get the impression she's all for bursting out of the bag, so to speak. I see.
Jeremy Silver:Roslyn Lasser, who's the the CEO of UKRI, I think, has commented on some of the the, you know, the
Baroness Brown:Yeah.
Jeremy Silver:As has the government itself. So it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, perhaps we should see and hope for some change there because
Baroness Brown:Well, I and it's in a way, the 1 good thing I think about this thing having been put outside of UKRI is perhaps it is the first step in recognizing that we are constraining our research and innovation organization. By the way, it is treated in the rules it has to work under. And therefore, that that's probably not getting us some of the most original and innovative approaches to things.
Jeremy Silver:We're nearly at the end of our of our conversation. This is and it's been amazing. And I feel that we've been just scratched the surface really, but I wanted to ask you something a little bit different which is you're an amazing role model as a leader in your field and you've had an extraordinary career of achievement. Do you have some words of advice particularly for young women thinking about entering what's still a very male dominated workforce?
Baroness Brown:I suppose I would say to them, if you've got as far as you have and you find yourself in a male dominated environment, then you're probably better than all your colleagues because you've had to work harder to get there. So remember that when you're feeling that, imposter syndrome or that you're a mistake. I mean, I think it's no different from really, anybody that if you enjoy doing something and you want to succeed in it, you work hard and you're persistent and you very politely try not to take no for an answer. Also, I sometimes think we train our our engineers and scientists to analyze problems but not always to present solutions. And and particularly when you're in industry, what you want is somebody coming into your office when you're running a group or a team.
Baroness Brown:You want somebody to come into your office and say, this is the problem and this is what I'm going to do about it. And too many people come into your office and give you fantastic analysis of the problem. And then you're left thinking, so you're expecting me to solve it?
Jeremy Silver:So what
Baroness Brown:are you gonna do about it? Be a solutions person. Be excited not by the analysis of the problem, but by then saying, so these are all the exciting things we can do to solve it. Because I think the people who like solving problems are the people who, who I think get on generally.
Jeremy Silver:That is brilliant brilliant advice. And I've I've got 1 final question for you. A sort of fun question. I've I've sort of thrown it at the end of all of these conversations we've been having, which is, you know, in all of this wonderful world of of innovation and new ideas and new approaches, which which is your favorite?
Baroness Brown:Which is my favorite?
Jeremy Silver:Favorite innovation.
Baroness Brown:Oh, gosh. Well, I I'm I'm not sure I have a a favorite innovation. At the moment, what I'm really excited about is that I think where money will be made is starting to be in between all the places it used to be made. You know, everybody's recognizing that green electrons are getting very, very cheap. So generating green electrons and building the kit to make them, it's all kind of pressure on reducing cost.
Baroness Brown:So where you're going to start making money is, okay, what different services can you start to deliver? And somebody was, was talking to me about, okay, green electrons will be a commodity, but actually where the money will be made is, is when and where you deliver them and things like that. And I think it's that how how the shape of conventional systems is changing in the energy transformation. But actually with this area which I am not a native of which is, you know, the digital and big data area and how that is has the potential to enable us to really transform things and really do things very much more cost effectively whilst also delivering a better customer experience. And that I think is a hugely exciting area.
Baroness Brown:And I think we have a real problem in this country, which is if you look at our politicians and the commons and the lords, there are too many people my age who are not digital natives. And I think if you look at our civil service, they're not digital natives either. You know, there are lots of people lots of very clever people who did degrees in arts and humanities and things. And to make this work, we're going to have to change a lot of the ways we regulate things, a lot of our approaches to who owns data. And we're gonna have to change a lot of the way, you know, things like what, what off what and and people like that do.
Baroness Brown:That's the thing that's exciting me at the moment.
Jeremy Silver:That's amazing. And as is so often the case when I ask that question, the answer seems to open up, an entirely new, podcast series in its own right, which, of course, we we never quite have enough time to engage, at least not this time.
Baroness Brown:Perhaps I will or as an alternative I want to say to you that in my spare time, I really enjoy embroidery. So, and I couldn't do that if somebody hadn't thought of the needle.
Jeremy Silver:Well, with that, we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining us this week, and thank you to my guest, Paradis Brown, for sharing your thoughts on innovation, on net 0 ambitions, and the importance of the knitting needle.
Baroness Brown:No, no, no, no, the embroidery needle.
Jeremy Silver:And the importance of the embroidery needle. That's all for today's Supercharging Innovation podcast. Thanks for listening. Join us again for the next podcast episode, and make sure you subscribe to us on iTunes or Spotify, and other podcasting distribution platforms are available. Goodbye.