Coventry's Manufacturing Technology Centre will now play a key role in helping to shape manufacturing policy for the UK.
The Ansty Park based facility has become a member of the influential All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group.
The group is a cross-party coalition of parliamentarians and manufacturing industry organisations.
It works to develop new industrial policy ideas, critique existing government decision-making around manufacturing, communicate within Parliament the importance of a well-balanced productive economy, and help the manufacturing community better engage with the policy process.
The APMG plays a key role in ensuring policies and programmes to support the manufacturing sector achieve consensus from all parties, and across industry.
It holds regular events and seminars in Parliament and throughout the UK, publishes newsletters summarising manufacturing policy issues, industry news and other political developments, and produces briefing papers to present different perspectives on particular policy issues.
Common subjects of discussion include skills, access to finance, procurement of innovation, supporting exports and energy policy. The group also conducts longer term research into more complex or emerging industrial policy topics through cross-party inquiries.
The group includes representatives from major manufacturers, manufacturing organisations, manufacturing and engineering institutions and trade unions.
Manufacturing Technology Centre chief executive Clive Hickman, who will represent the MTC on the all-party group said he was delighted to get the opportunity to promote manufacturing on such an influential group.
“The role of the MTC is to inspire British manufacturing, to deliver manufacturing system solutions and to influence and inform UK industrial strategies. Membership of the All-Party Manufacturing Group puts us in a prime position to deliver these objectives,” he said.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre opened in 2011 and has already achieved most of its 2020 targets well ahead of schedule. It is a partnership between some of the UK’s major global manufacturers and three forward-thinking universities: Birmingham, Nottingham and Loughborough as well as TWI Ltd, the operating division of The Welding Institute.
The MTC aims to provide a competitive environment to bridge the gap between university-based research and the development of innovative manufacturing solutions, in line with the Government’s manufacturing strategy. The MTC is part the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, supported by Innovate UK, formerly the Technology Strategy Board.
