ESCO Council making steady progress
1 min read
Speaking at the Future World Symposium event in London today, Lord Younger, BIS Minister for Intellectual Property, outlined the progress that has been made by ESCO to grow the electronics industry's annual economic contribution from £80billion to £120bn by 2020.
Three areas of progress were reported on specifically. Firstly, Lord Younger said ESCO has put significant effort into defining the skills challenges facing the sector.
The Council has also started looking at future technology needs to see what industry and government can do to address barriers to innovation, he said, before pointing to a recently announced TSB competition aimed at accelerating innovation and growth in electronics manufacturing.
"Thirdly, ESCO is focusing on future markets for electronic systems both at home and abroad, particularly in robotics and autonomous systems, healthcare, and industrial automation," Younger noted.
The ESCO Council was established in June last year in a bid grow the UK's electronic systems industry by 50% by 2020 and create an additional 150,000 highly-skilled jobs.
The focus, as Lord Young told delegates today, is on building recognition of the sector, raising awareness of what it does, and accelerating growth in key target markets.
