Birmingham was designated a Science City by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown in the 2005 Budget along with Nottingham and Bristol.  Manchester, Newcastle and York were all given science city status in 2004.

Advantage West Midlands Deputy Chairman Norman Price outlined how the agency and its partners - including universities and local authorities across the West Midlands - plan to turn the concept of a Science City into a reality.  The plans were unveiled at the second Science Cities Summit in Manchester, at which Lord Sainsbury of Turville, Minster for Science and Innovation was a keynote speaker.

Norman Price said: “Our vision is that Birmingham Science City will develop and use science and technology to improve the prosperity and quality of life of the city, the West Midlands and the UK.

“Birmingham is a vibrant young city at the heart of a well-connected and capable region.  We will draw on the strengths of its excellent existing science base to create new and useful knowledge.  We will use its thriving financial, business and industrial community to translate this knowledge into new technology, products and services.”

The Birmingham Science City project is still in development but the key areas it will focus on are:

• Achieving a world-class research base including joint research with businesses of all sizes both within and outside the region, particularly in Europe.
• Building on existing strengths in developing effective knowledge transfer between the science and technology base and companies of all sizes and the public sector – and vice versa. This helps solve problems and develop opportunities in the design of both products and processes.
• Promoting the development of our people/skills base to meet the current and future needs of the economy. As an essential part of this, we will prioritise the quality of science and technology education in schools, colleges and higher education.
• Developing projects to promote understanding of science right across the population. In particular, we will encourage more young people to see the value of science and technology, so that they choose to study these subjects and consider taking up a related career.
• Developing demonstrator and flagship projects, particularly in relation to Advanced Materials, Digital Media, Energy, Medical Technology and Healthcare and Transport Technologies.

 At today’s event Lord Sainsbury outlined his vision for what a Science City should look like.  He emphasised that science cities will play a key role, not just for the benefit of cities but also for regions and for the nation as a whole.  He said that successful science cities would be characterised by having world class universities and, as well as strengths in science, would have strong creative media and financial service sectors.  He also said that science cities will be dynamic places where young people wanted to live and work and will be well connected with good national and international transport links.    They would also have planning regimes that recognise the value of knowledge based businesses.

Norman Price concluded: “Birmingham meets all of the criteria outlined by Lord Sainsbury and is therefore well placed to develop into a world-class Science City.  There are already many projects in development which involve collaboration, i.e. between the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick, and I am excited about the future opportunities that Birmingham Science City will bring.”