I saw a joke recently from Professor Brian Cox: The world is made up of 10 kinds of people – those that understand binary and those that don’t! It’s not often that you get a good joke with a bit of science behind it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
I’m right in the middle of packing boxes in readiness for the move with my regional team for the North West to relocate to Daresbury Campus. It’s a little hectic as we move the entire team this week but I thought I would write a few words before we go. Daresbury is a world class science facility with STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, the Cockcroft Institute for accelerator science and Daresebury Science and Innovation Centre.
The Innovation Centre houses over 100 (not a binary number this time) high tech companies in a range of sectors from biomedical, digital/ICT, energy and the environment to micro/nano technology. The new Vanguard House has just opened with room for another hundred and there’s already a list of companies looking to locate there.
UKTI’s new strategy has at the heart of it a push to work with more innovative and high growth firms. The connection between internationalisation and innovation is very clear and studies show that exporting firms are something like 75% more innovative than non exporting firms. By moving to Daresbury we will be working every day alongside a group of terrific, highly innovative businesses with the promise of more to come so, in a way, our move is really putting UKTI’s strategy into action. I’m really looking forward to the move and if you’re in the vicinity of Daresbury please pop in to see us, we’d be pleased to see you. Our new address as from 23 September will be:
UKTI
Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus
Warrington
WA4 4AD
It’s a fantastic place to be and just in case you didn’t get the binary joke then we will have access to hundreds of scientists who’ll be able to explain it all to you.