Changing direction
3 Feb 2003
The chemical industry needs a drastic change of attitude if it is to survive in the UK, according to the report from the Chemicals Innovation and Growth Team (CIGT). The CIGT was set up last year by the government to identify the best strategies for the industry to flourish.
The picture that emerges from the report is troubling. It suggests that, in many ways, the industry has been taking almost entirely the wrong track for several years, either in fact or in its perception by the public.
CIA director general Judith Hackitt, who chaired the CIGT's regulation and reputation strategy group, commented that the industry has still to learn the effects that its actions have on public perception. 'It is in the details, and in taking some of those important 'final' steps where we are seen to lack the courage of our convictions and hence fail to make the reputation gains,' she told the CIA's business outlook conference in London last month.
The industry needs to own up to the poor performers within the industry as well as celebrating the success of the good, she said: 'We consistently call for balanced reporting from our regulators. It's not too difficult to see why they would expect the same from us.' Third-party verification of management systems is also a must. Moreover, she added, the industry must be seen to embrace regulation rather than opposing it, and its voluntary self-regulation schemes must consistently go above, beyond and before governmental regulations.
Listening and respecting the views of others is increasingly vital, Hackitt said - and not just of those outside the industry. The average age of employees in the industry is rising, and it's important, she said, to listen to the views of the younger employees.
'The 700 young people who responded to the CIGT survey said that they felt they were not listened to or encouraged to put forward new ideas,' she said. 'We have bags of enthusiasm in the young people in our industry - tomorrow's leaders - just sitting there waiting for us to ask them for help. If we don't ask them, they will leave the industry.'
Jeremy Scudamore, chief executive of former Zeneca Specialties business Avecia, was even more blunt. 'Innovation in Britain is going downhill, whatever way you measure it,' he said.
'There's too little money in R&D, spread too thinly. There are 24 trade associations claiming to represent the chemicals sector - who's going to bother to talk to all of them? And there are 90 universities offering some kind of chemistry course and all claiming to be world class in some way, which they can't possibly be. The UK is failing, and it's no comfort to say that at least it's doing it cheaply.'
On the other hand, there are a few pluses, he said. The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are chemistry-based, however much they try to dissociate themselves from the chemical industry, he said. Tax rates are relatively attractive, with capital gains tax in particular lower than in California, and there is a pool of British expats and entrepreneurs who could be persuaded to return to the UK to add their skills to the base.
What's needed, Scudamore says, is to encourage the universities to specialise. 'We need to make a division between those which are very good at basic research, those which ought to specialise in how that research should be applied, and those which just concentrate on teaching. At the moment, the money follows the research and doesn't reward the excellence of teaching.' There is also a gap in university courses, he said: students need training in business skills and entrepreneurship, so that they feel able to start new companies and spin-offs. Two German universities already offer a combined chemistry and business doctorate, he added.
Equally, he said, not every region of the UK can specialise in chemistry and the chemical industry. 'We'll just spread ourselves too thinly, again, and fail, again.' Chemical clusters need careful government planning and targeting: in Finland, for example, the government will only award grants for companies in certain areas. Clusters such as this provide a safety net for science-based businesses, said Scudamore - scientists can start businesses there secure in the knowledge that, should the business fail, there are job opportunities nearby.
John Ramsay of Cogent, the sector skills council for oil and gas extraction, chemicals and petroleum, commented that the best way to stop the slide in applications to science and engineering university courses, and hence the shortage of recruits to the industry, is to target schoolchildren at a very young age. 'We need to convince children to enroll in science-based courses at secondary level, because if they don't, they won't be available to us as employees.'
