News - Midlands
COVER STORY: Rowe's rollercoaster
In the 1980s no-one knew what science parks could achieve. Twenty years later the University of Warwick Science Park is a beacon of success. Jim Pendrill talked to its ever-present director. Erikka Askeland profiles some of its success stories
It is somewhat ironic that 20 years ago it was none other than Margaret Thatcher who opened the Barclays Venture Centre and the first buildings at Warwick Science Park.
For as David Rowe, the park's director since the very beginning, remembers, it was precisely the era of high unemployment and manufacturing meltdown which characterised the early period of Mrs T's tenure at Number 10 that led to the park's existence.
"Manufacturing companies were shrinking and local unemployment in the Coventry area was 20 per cent alone. That was a shock. The city really wanted to work with anyone who could help," recalls Rowe.
But what Warwick and other science parks would go on to achieve was of course the very epitome of what Thatcherism came to be about, not least in terms of promoting free enterprise and a culture of entrepreneurialism in the UK.
Nor has the Iron Lady forgotten the importance of what Warwick has since achieved. To mark a recent bash celebrating the park's 20th birthday, she wrote an open letter to the audience praising its work.
But, winding the clock back 20 years to continue the story, it was all very differentthen. Rowe says it was simply a case of Coventry City Council and the University of Warwick banging heads together and saying "how about a science park?"
"Both sides were motivated and we were able to assemble the land, which was owned between the two, very quickly."
Who would actually put themselves up for running such a daring venture was another matter. Little could anyone have realised that the man they chose would have such a huge impact - not only on the growth of the park but on the wider region's emerging technology sector.
Rowe, who had previously worked as a scientist for two of the city's major employers, Peugeot and Marconi, was working at the time down south for the UK Atomic Energy Authority on the government's renewable energy conservation programme. However, he fancied a change.
"I wanted to run my own show in a field that excited me. I didn't want to be a bench engineer and scientist, I wanted to do something that kept me involved with the advancement of technology. The job seemed tailor-made for me."
Park of the appeal for Rowe was that the science park ethos touched so many different agendas.
"I always say to myself that I have effectively had a new job every five years because the job itself has changed with time. It touches so many areas - innovation, R&D, enterprise, small business. Over the years different parts of the agenda have bubbled to the top. Effectively you can make science parks adapt to whatever the economic circumstances are. A successful science park determines what its role should be. It does something useful."
Having taken up the challenge Rowe knew that it would be a rollercoaster challenge to make the park a success in the early days.
"In the beginning no one really knew what science parks should be. To be honest it was knife-edge stuff for three or four years, it was real business start-up stuff. I was on a three-year contract and it was made clear to me that if things didn't work out then I would carry the can. There was too much at stake, the partners could not afford for it to fail."
In the early days many of the deals Rowe did to secure revenue streams were on an ad hoc basis - such as with Barclays for the Venture Centre, with individual multinationals, or via accessing European Union funds and assorted grants.
One look at the statistics tells you that the park most certainly hasn't failed. When it opened a survey of the local economy revealed there were only 40 technology companies in the area, a dozen of which were based at the park itself. Today there are something like 1,000 such companies in the economy around Warwick and Coventry, creating in effect the region's only serious technology cluster.
Sure, the emerging IT economy has driven much of that growth, but the park has without doubt played a huge role. Rowe reckons that the park has worked with something like 800 companies over the last 20 years. Not all have survived and not all are from the immediate area but of that figure about 300 have been based on the park while the remainder have received business support. Such is the number of companies that pass through the park now that the combination of rental streams and tenants paying for business services ensures it has a healthy balance sheet.
"Whatever way you add up the stats we have touched a high proportion of technology companies in this area," adds Rowe. "For instance, if you compare us to Manchester or Glasgow science parks what we have achieved is far bigger given the catchment area we are working to."
Of course any successful science park also needs some shining stars to really put it on the map. Rowe has no hesitation in rolling off two particular companies that have done just that - Computer Vision (see box p20) and Sun Microsystems.
The growth of the park has also allowed Rowe to develop the brand further afield. The park now has three innovation centres in other locations - Warwick, Solihull and Binley. The raison d'xeatre was simple - Rowe knew that there was enough demand for what the park was offering as little as 12 miles away.
"Invariably it would come down to the individual managing director and key staff. They might be based in Leamington, loved what we offered, but simply didn't want to have to commute to Coventry. It was as simple as that. My board took an awful lot of persuading but I got my way."
Given that the original park is running out of land - it has room for just one more building after the recent completion of its Riley Court development (the largest on the park at 40,000 sq ft) - the move can be seen to be a shrewd one too. Rowe's priority now is to develop other major sites in the immediate Coventry/Warwickshire area with other major partners. As we speak he says he is in discussions with several partners but the deals have yet to be rubber-stamped. "Our future development will primarily be with others on other sites."
Rowe also stresses that in today's business climate he has to offer companies something that will give them a competitive advantage. "What I ask myself is how do we create an environment where businesses have a competitive advantage by the way we organise things. There is a tremendous reservoir of knowledge and business support available now, but it is often not available in a readily digestible form to business. It is our job to make it digestible."
And Rowe extends the point to strategic alliances in the Midlands. "The park can take the lead, for instance in bringing together larger and smaller corporates in the tech sector. There are also other areas such as the creative industries sector where we could have a significant role to play. The interaction of creative industries and technology will be of immense significance in times to come."
For the time being at least, the immense significance of what Rowe has achieved is plain for all to see
Technology by design: PTC
One of the first big names to land on the newly formed University of Warwick Science Park was Massachusetts-based Computervision, the largest computer aided design (CAD) software developer and distributor in the world.
Now called Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) following a merger in 1997, the company came to Coventry in 1984 and proceeded to work closely with Warwick University's Warwick Manu -facturing Group (WMG).
PTC was initially drawn to the location in order to take advantage of the city's proximity to its main automotive and aerospace engineering companies. It sold its electronic product definition (EPD) software to companies like Vickers Shipbuilding in Barrow-in-Furness, automotive electronics supplier Magneti Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Lucas Aerospace, Land Rover, Jaguar Cars and Rolls-Royce Aerospace in Derby.
The company's design software was also used in Coventry's world-beating attack on land speed records. The Thrust SSC was a joint effort between 15 Coventry-based companies backed by Coventry University and Coventry Centre for Investment. On 26 September 1997 Thrust SSC clocked up 714mph, beating the previous record established in 1983 by 81mph. Less than a month later, the Thrust team made history by breaking the sound barrier, setting a new supersonic record at 763.035mph at Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
Aircraft and car manufacturers use the company's technology for rapid prototyping, to test designs even before they are built as prototype models. Design faults can be picked up and corrected at the drawing stage, which makes the product cheaper and quicker to produce.
One of PTC's main clients, Rover Group, pioneered rapid prototyping in developing the Discovery, the four-wheel drive vehicle brought to market in three years - less than half the European norm of seven years.
For the last 20 years the group has worked closely with WMG's chief, Professor Kumar Battacharrya, and invested in a number of research projects. In October 2000 PTC together with neighbouring Sun Microsystems and WMG launched a European-based collaborative centre. The facility, located at the university's International Manufacturing Centre, links via the web to other such centres in Boston, Detroit and Tokyo.
Using highly advanced 3D-simulation and the internet, the collaboration centre has the capability to link teams of engineers from across the globe on a single project. It also has the ability to provide the framework for a "virtual factory" with links to B2B marketplace portals and process planning software. Facilities also allow small to medium-sized companies to access technology that previously could only be supported by large multinationals.
"Parametric Technology recognises that Warwick Manufacturing Group is world-renowned in business and technology education," says Richard Harrison, president and chief operating officer of PTC.
Bhattacharyya says: "PTC has a powerful set of tools for designers. Our challenge is to work jointly to develop applications for aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding and general engineering. The strength of WMG lies in our ability to harness advanced technologies and to turn them into competitive advantage."
Essential image: Improvision
For a business started in a spare room in Ken Salisbury's house in 1990, Improvision has come a long way. Now with 44 staff and offices in Massachusetts, Germany and France, as well as distributors in Japan, Switzerland, Sweden and Canada, the business has retained its heart as an innovative business at the cutting edge of biological imaging.
Since Salisbury, who is still a director of the business, moved the business into the University of Warwick Science Park in 1990, the business has retained its strong roots as a software developer with a leading range of medical imaging products. The business is a shining example of a British success story.
It has developed an innovative software system that enables users to view sharp 3D images on a 2D computer screen with no blurring.
In simplest terms, its products allow scientists to capture microscopic views of individual living cells as 2D, 3D and now 4D computerised images. Changes in cells as the result of disease or treatment can thus be closely monitored and the techniques developed by Improvision are then widely used by cancer research technologists in particular.
With a top-line turnover of £35m for the last financial year, the business has consolidated its steady growth and built a stable platform of products, notably the Volocity range, which is available as a part of a partnership with IBM.
The business has made strong use of its links with Warwick University, working with PhD students to integrate their research with company projects and products. But the business also heavily invests in staff development and achieved the Investors in People award in 2003.
It is this continued research and development that has led to the business breakthroughs in the US, where Improvision enjoys 60 per cent of its current business. The achievement was recognised with a Queen's Award for Enterprise, the highest honour that can be awarded to an exporting UK commercial organisation.
Client establishments include all major universities, such as Cambridge, Yale and the Harvard Medical School, as well as GlaxoSmithKline.
Though the business caught the eye of the prestigious Fast 50 awards for technology companies in a hurry, the strategy has been steady rather than speedy. "At the moment, we're in a regrouping phase," says senior marketing specialist Nicky Walker. "We have new products out this year in the biological imaging market."
FreeStyle Games
If you're an outsider, the world of computer game production seems like an exciting sphere to inhabit, but according to Dave Osbourn, managing director of video and production company FreeStyleGames, it's a difficult existence if you're not one of the big boys.
FreeStyleGames is one of the typical tenants at Warwick Science Park where 41 per cent of inhabitants are from the computer software and systems industries. It started life in 2002 when five game developers working for local well-known companies Rare and Codemasters became disillusioned with the large corporation ethos.
With initial venture capital funding the company began its mission to produce ideas, concepts and designs for video games in a smaller team environment. Osbourn explains: "We decided that a small skilled team of professionals could work well using an outsource model - calling on experts in the field."
Osbourn and his team spent the first year of business putting in the groundwork, gathering the technology and art needed to form the basis of a game - the game engine. Now the company has the capacity to produce racing, character and sports games and is currently working on a character adventure game for the Sony Playstation2 and Xbox, which is already six months in development.
"The games industry isn't that brilliant at the moment," says Osbourn. "For smaller development companies it's particularly hard - bigger operations employ thousands of people. We expected to have done more and got a bit further along with our games.
"It takes time to draw up contracts and finalise things when you're working with big businesses. We've learnt not to place our eggs all in one basket. But there are a lot of opportunities ahead and it looks like we're going upwards."
For the fuller picture,
subscribe to Insider
every month.
It is somewhat ironic that 20 years ago it was none other than Margaret Thatcher who opened the Barclays Venture Centre and the first buildings at Warwick Science Park.
For as David Rowe, the park's director since the very beginning, remembers, it was precisely the era of high unemployment and manufacturing meltdown which characterised the early period of Mrs T's tenure at Number 10 that led to the park's existence.
"Manufacturing companies were shrinking and local unemployment in the Coventry area was 20 per cent alone. That was a shock. The city really wanted to work with anyone who could help," recalls Rowe.
But what Warwick and other science parks would go on to achieve was of course the very epitome of what Thatcherism came to be about, not least in terms of promoting free enterprise and a culture of entrepreneurialism in the UK.
Nor has the Iron Lady forgotten the importance of what Warwick has since achieved. To mark a recent bash celebrating the park's 20th birthday, she wrote an open letter to the audience praising its work.
But, winding the clock back 20 years to continue the story, it was all very differentthen. Rowe says it was simply a case of Coventry City Council and the University of Warwick banging heads together and saying "how about a science park?"
"Both sides were motivated and we were able to assemble the land, which was owned between the two, very quickly."
Who would actually put themselves up for running such a daring venture was another matter. Little could anyone have realised that the man they chose would have such a huge impact - not only on the growth of the park but on the wider region's emerging technology sector.
Rowe, who had previously worked as a scientist for two of the city's major employers, Peugeot and Marconi, was working at the time down south for the UK Atomic Energy Authority on the government's renewable energy conservation programme. However, he fancied a change.
"I wanted to run my own show in a field that excited me. I didn't want to be a bench engineer and scientist, I wanted to do something that kept me involved with the advancement of technology. The job seemed tailor-made for me."
Park of the appeal for Rowe was that the science park ethos touched so many different agendas.
"I always say to myself that I have effectively had a new job every five years because the job itself has changed with time. It touches so many areas - innovation, R&D, enterprise, small business. Over the years different parts of the agenda have bubbled to the top. Effectively you can make science parks adapt to whatever the economic circumstances are. A successful science park determines what its role should be. It does something useful."
Having taken up the challenge Rowe knew that it would be a rollercoaster challenge to make the park a success in the early days.
"In the beginning no one really knew what science parks should be. To be honest it was knife-edge stuff for three or four years, it was real business start-up stuff. I was on a three-year contract and it was made clear to me that if things didn't work out then I would carry the can. There was too much at stake, the partners could not afford for it to fail."
In the early days many of the deals Rowe did to secure revenue streams were on an ad hoc basis - such as with Barclays for the Venture Centre, with individual multinationals, or via accessing European Union funds and assorted grants.
One look at the statistics tells you that the park most certainly hasn't failed. When it opened a survey of the local economy revealed there were only 40 technology companies in the area, a dozen of which were based at the park itself. Today there are something like 1,000 such companies in the economy around Warwick and Coventry, creating in effect the region's only serious technology cluster.
Sure, the emerging IT economy has driven much of that growth, but the park has without doubt played a huge role. Rowe reckons that the park has worked with something like 800 companies over the last 20 years. Not all have survived and not all are from the immediate area but of that figure about 300 have been based on the park while the remainder have received business support. Such is the number of companies that pass through the park now that the combination of rental streams and tenants paying for business services ensures it has a healthy balance sheet.
"Whatever way you add up the stats we have touched a high proportion of technology companies in this area," adds Rowe. "For instance, if you compare us to Manchester or Glasgow science parks what we have achieved is far bigger given the catchment area we are working to."
Of course any successful science park also needs some shining stars to really put it on the map. Rowe has no hesitation in rolling off two particular companies that have done just that - Computer Vision (see box p20) and Sun Microsystems.
The growth of the park has also allowed Rowe to develop the brand further afield. The park now has three innovation centres in other locations - Warwick, Solihull and Binley. The raison d'xeatre was simple - Rowe knew that there was enough demand for what the park was offering as little as 12 miles away.
"Invariably it would come down to the individual managing director and key staff. They might be based in Leamington, loved what we offered, but simply didn't want to have to commute to Coventry. It was as simple as that. My board took an awful lot of persuading but I got my way."
Given that the original park is running out of land - it has room for just one more building after the recent completion of its Riley Court development (the largest on the park at 40,000 sq ft) - the move can be seen to be a shrewd one too. Rowe's priority now is to develop other major sites in the immediate Coventry/Warwickshire area with other major partners. As we speak he says he is in discussions with several partners but the deals have yet to be rubber-stamped. "Our future development will primarily be with others on other sites."
Rowe also stresses that in today's business climate he has to offer companies something that will give them a competitive advantage. "What I ask myself is how do we create an environment where businesses have a competitive advantage by the way we organise things. There is a tremendous reservoir of knowledge and business support available now, but it is often not available in a readily digestible form to business. It is our job to make it digestible."
And Rowe extends the point to strategic alliances in the Midlands. "The park can take the lead, for instance in bringing together larger and smaller corporates in the tech sector. There are also other areas such as the creative industries sector where we could have a significant role to play. The interaction of creative industries and technology will be of immense significance in times to come."
For the time being at least, the immense significance of what Rowe has achieved is plain for all to see
Technology by design: PTC
One of the first big names to land on the newly formed University of Warwick Science Park was Massachusetts-based Computervision, the largest computer aided design (CAD) software developer and distributor in the world.
Now called Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) following a merger in 1997, the company came to Coventry in 1984 and proceeded to work closely with Warwick University's Warwick Manu -facturing Group (WMG).
PTC was initially drawn to the location in order to take advantage of the city's proximity to its main automotive and aerospace engineering companies. It sold its electronic product definition (EPD) software to companies like Vickers Shipbuilding in Barrow-in-Furness, automotive electronics supplier Magneti Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Lucas Aerospace, Land Rover, Jaguar Cars and Rolls-Royce Aerospace in Derby.
The company's design software was also used in Coventry's world-beating attack on land speed records. The Thrust SSC was a joint effort between 15 Coventry-based companies backed by Coventry University and Coventry Centre for Investment. On 26 September 1997 Thrust SSC clocked up 714mph, beating the previous record established in 1983 by 81mph. Less than a month later, the Thrust team made history by breaking the sound barrier, setting a new supersonic record at 763.035mph at Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
Aircraft and car manufacturers use the company's technology for rapid prototyping, to test designs even before they are built as prototype models. Design faults can be picked up and corrected at the drawing stage, which makes the product cheaper and quicker to produce.
One of PTC's main clients, Rover Group, pioneered rapid prototyping in developing the Discovery, the four-wheel drive vehicle brought to market in three years - less than half the European norm of seven years.
For the last 20 years the group has worked closely with WMG's chief, Professor Kumar Battacharrya, and invested in a number of research projects. In October 2000 PTC together with neighbouring Sun Microsystems and WMG launched a European-based collaborative centre. The facility, located at the university's International Manufacturing Centre, links via the web to other such centres in Boston, Detroit and Tokyo.
Using highly advanced 3D-simulation and the internet, the collaboration centre has the capability to link teams of engineers from across the globe on a single project. It also has the ability to provide the framework for a "virtual factory" with links to B2B marketplace portals and process planning software. Facilities also allow small to medium-sized companies to access technology that previously could only be supported by large multinationals.
"Parametric Technology recognises that Warwick Manufacturing Group is world-renowned in business and technology education," says Richard Harrison, president and chief operating officer of PTC.
Bhattacharyya says: "PTC has a powerful set of tools for designers. Our challenge is to work jointly to develop applications for aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding and general engineering. The strength of WMG lies in our ability to harness advanced technologies and to turn them into competitive advantage."
Essential image: Improvision
For a business started in a spare room in Ken Salisbury's house in 1990, Improvision has come a long way. Now with 44 staff and offices in Massachusetts, Germany and France, as well as distributors in Japan, Switzerland, Sweden and Canada, the business has retained its heart as an innovative business at the cutting edge of biological imaging.
Since Salisbury, who is still a director of the business, moved the business into the University of Warwick Science Park in 1990, the business has retained its strong roots as a software developer with a leading range of medical imaging products. The business is a shining example of a British success story.
It has developed an innovative software system that enables users to view sharp 3D images on a 2D computer screen with no blurring.
In simplest terms, its products allow scientists to capture microscopic views of individual living cells as 2D, 3D and now 4D computerised images. Changes in cells as the result of disease or treatment can thus be closely monitored and the techniques developed by Improvision are then widely used by cancer research technologists in particular.
With a top-line turnover of £35m for the last financial year, the business has consolidated its steady growth and built a stable platform of products, notably the Volocity range, which is available as a part of a partnership with IBM.
The business has made strong use of its links with Warwick University, working with PhD students to integrate their research with company projects and products. But the business also heavily invests in staff development and achieved the Investors in People award in 2003.
It is this continued research and development that has led to the business breakthroughs in the US, where Improvision enjoys 60 per cent of its current business. The achievement was recognised with a Queen's Award for Enterprise, the highest honour that can be awarded to an exporting UK commercial organisation.
Client establishments include all major universities, such as Cambridge, Yale and the Harvard Medical School, as well as GlaxoSmithKline.
Though the business caught the eye of the prestigious Fast 50 awards for technology companies in a hurry, the strategy has been steady rather than speedy. "At the moment, we're in a regrouping phase," says senior marketing specialist Nicky Walker. "We have new products out this year in the biological imaging market."
FreeStyle Games
If you're an outsider, the world of computer game production seems like an exciting sphere to inhabit, but according to Dave Osbourn, managing director of video and production company FreeStyleGames, it's a difficult existence if you're not one of the big boys.
FreeStyleGames is one of the typical tenants at Warwick Science Park where 41 per cent of inhabitants are from the computer software and systems industries. It started life in 2002 when five game developers working for local well-known companies Rare and Codemasters became disillusioned with the large corporation ethos.
With initial venture capital funding the company began its mission to produce ideas, concepts and designs for video games in a smaller team environment. Osbourn explains: "We decided that a small skilled team of professionals could work well using an outsource model - calling on experts in the field."
Osbourn and his team spent the first year of business putting in the groundwork, gathering the technology and art needed to form the basis of a game - the game engine. Now the company has the capacity to produce racing, character and sports games and is currently working on a character adventure game for the Sony Playstation2 and Xbox, which is already six months in development.
"The games industry isn't that brilliant at the moment," says Osbourn. "For smaller development companies it's particularly hard - bigger operations employ thousands of people. We expected to have done more and got a bit further along with our games.
"It takes time to draw up contracts and finalise things when you're working with big businesses. We've learnt not to place our eggs all in one basket. But there are a lot of opportunities ahead and it looks like we're going upwards."
For the fuller picture,
subscribe to Insider
every month.