IC3 can be Merseyside’s five-star facililty
Source: Alex Turner: Liverpool Daily Post
Alex Turner is the general manager of financial training firm, Ambitious Minds
The confirmation of funding this week for Liverpool Science Park’s third building is exciting news.
Of course, much of the competition comes not just from science parks across the UK, but also from huge science cities in China which house 100,000 people or more.
On that measure, building another 42,000 sq ft of science facilities in Liverpool is like trying to fix the Greek economic crisis by buying a tub of taramasalata.
But as former American President, and one-time aspiring scientist, Theodore Roosevelt said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
And while I don’t tend to be a fan of symbolism in business, the growth of the science park into a third building will be important symbolically, as well as scientifically.
Situated within the knowledge quarter and close to the universities, it demonstrates to the thousands of students walking past every day that they can stay in the city doing innovative work.
It would be great to see some current students start their careers – even start their businesses – in IC3 when it opens in less than two years’ time.
The science park’s growth is alongside the plans for 2m sq ft of life sciences facilities at Liverpool BioCampus. Bringing that to fruition will be hugely significant to the city as it would elevate the city’s corporate brand within the scientific sector. This isn’t, though, an argument that we should diminish the way we push Liverpool as a visitor destination to promote Liverpool as a scientific centre of excellence.
We must do both.
In this week’s Times Education Supplement, there was a piece about children in Bali whose parents work very hard to enable their children to go to school to learn English, with the hope they will go on to work in the relatively well-paid tourist industry.
In Bali, the tourist industry is visible and the route into a career there is also clear.
We need to take the same attitude to science in Liverpool. As a city we need to extol its virtues and encourage the students in schools to think of themselves as the scientists of the future.
But the industry has to play its part, by being as visible and open as possible. The developments at Liverpool Science Park and Liverpool BioCampus can be our equivalent of Bali’s five-star beach resorts.
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