I was absolutely delighted to discover that the Advanced Services Group was selected from amongst hundreds of projects to be featured in a report by the UK government’s main research funding body, the UKRI. The final report ‘Impact of EPSRC’s Manufacturing the Future programme 2005 to 2020’ demonstrates the importance of research investment in the latest manufacturing technologies and practices.
The authors of the report looked at how £975m had been invested from 2005-2020 into research initiatives to support innovation in manufacturing. Of all these many initiatives, our work was chosen as a leading example, in particular how we delivered impact by coupling research funded by the government with our in-depth work with multinational businesses and our programmes to support business change in SMEs.
It is hugely gratifying to see the work I have been devoted to for two decades, and which my dedicated team at the Advanced Services Group has made happen, being acknowledged in this way. Servitization is vital to all of our futures; in the manufacturing industry, but also more broadly as a route to environmental survival globally. We are very fortunate to have had the support of the UKRI’s research councils including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council for our work, and they continue to support us today.