I attended this event on 3rd September and was struck by the messages about skills needs in Nottingham City and beyond. For instance, the expanding bioscience incubator BioCity doesn’t need many life scientists as you might expect. Instead, they need a wide range of expertise in chemistry, medical technology, process engineering, bioinformatics and others to work within this complex environment.
A statistic that will stay with me is the prediction that, by 2014, half of all school leavers will have to go into healthcare to meet the demand in that sector.
So there are some huge challenges to meet the skills’ needs and to achieve scientific excellence in the city. Many ideas came out of the delegate discussions around how we can encourage people to develop STEM skills and to move into STEM sectors and how we can excite the whole population about STEM. A number of great partnership projects have already emerged from the Nottingham Science City Education and Training Group which has been meeting for the last 2 years. This event has provided a basis to take the work of the Group forward to tackle these challenges and aspirations.
www.science-city.co.uk
Cathy Brown, Regional Director, STEMNET