HVM Catapult: Powering Levelling Up
Advanced Manufacturing Park (former Orgreave site) in 2021 - HVM Catapult Centres AMRC and Nuclear AMRC shown
At its heart, the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper addresses a very simple question: how do we create a nation in which every citizen, every business, every community can fulfil its potential and prosper? Undoubtedly, there are some difficult issues that will have to be tackled as we strive to deliver the vision that Government has set out and we can expect some difficult future conversations – not least around the need to drive a cultural move away from central control and the ‘Whitehall knows best’ mindset.
But where there is more consensus, is on the power of innovation to revitalise communities that have been left behind by industrial change. That’s where the High Value Manufacturing Catapult comes in.
Working alongside business and government, we are helping to develop and scale-up the new green technologies and processes needed to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 and avert climate disaster. We are supporting manufacturers to make the green products of the future with clean energy and sustainable materials that will not leave a scar on landscapes. We are reducing the environmental impact of both industry and households, and showing how businesses up and down the land can use all resources more wisely and how best to handle products at the end of their life. The work we are doing will help to shape the resilient industries of the future, protecting both the global environment and our home communities.
The opportunity for the UK is huge. By developing UK-based supply chains, we’re bringing highly skilled work back into the places that need it. By taking a lead in the development of environmentally friendly products, processes and technologies, we are growing UK markets while offering global solutions. By building on industrial clusters around centres of innovation, we are injecting new energy into landscapes blighted by past industrial decline and supporting that energy with action to build the skills needed to harness new technologies effectively.
Simply put, we are powering levelling up. The transformations we have led around the former Orgreave site in Rotherham, at Ansty on the outskirts of Coventry, at NETPark in County Durham are excellent examples of how our capabilities, our ability to build the performance of innovative businesses and our commitment to developing the skills base can transform an area.
Orgreave site in 1984
Today, we are proud to stand behind the Government’s levelling up ambitions and take seriously our responsibility as a trusted expert advisor on the Levelling Up Advisory Council. As HVM Catapult CEO, Katherine Bennett says, “It’s what we do!”
