While the Republic has drawn down €290 million from Europe’s key innovation programme, Northern Ireland’s applications total just €30 million. That gap is an urgent wake-up call for the Executive to promote the region’s R&D, especially as the Seventh Framework Programme finishes in 2013.

Statistics for 2010 make clear that business leads the way in local innovation. The private sector spent 22 times more on R&D than government and had a 66 per cent share. Higher education made a substantial contribution (31 per cent) while a mere 3 per cent is done inside government.

That said, government departments have the potential to boost R&D across the board by securing funds from EU R&D programmes.

Most Northern Ireland applications to the framework programme have come from higher education (€21 million), with the remainder from businesses. The programme started in 2007. SMEs are deterred by the cost of participation, inadequate access to finance and problems with finding appropriate partner organisations.

The Irish Government hopes to receive €600 million from the programme over 2007-2013 and many southern researchers were seeking a larger sum. Based on its share of the island’s population, Northern Ireland should therefore be receiving €240 million over the programme’s lifetime. The UK does not have a specific target but has gained £3.27 billion to date.

Business R&D is dominated by externally-owned firms (68 per cent) and large enterprises (61 per cent) i.e. those with more than 250 employees. Small and medium enterprises spent £10.9 million less compared to 2009, an 8 per cent fall, and their share has declined over the recession from 58 per cent in 2008.

Total expenditure in real terms (£521.4 million) was up from £497.1 million in 2009, representing a 5 per cent increase. Using that measure, higher education spending increased by 10 per cent, business spending by 3 per cent and government spending dropped by 6 per cent.

Almost all business R&D spending (94 per cent) is carried out in-house, totalling £324.2 million in 2010. Of this, £234 million was generated in manufacturing. In cash terms, Northern Ireland had the second highest increase within the UK regions (9.1 per cent) in 2009 but that rise is offset by having the second smallest spend; Wales is last with a virtually static £244 million figure.

UK R&D is concentrated in East Anglia and along the M4 corridor, with strong pockets in the East Midlands and North West England.

The province’s R&D investment rate was initially measured as a share of 2009 GVA figures; new statistics are due in December. A 1.1 per cent figure for Northern Ireland makes it sixth out of 12 regions but the regional average is only a modest 1.3 per cent. The UK’s latest overall percentage (R&D of GDP) is 1.87 for 2009, with the Republic just behind on 1.77 per cent.

Business R&D spend in the Republic reached £1.87 billion in 2009 but fell to an estimated £1.6 billion in 2010, with medium and large enterprises cutting their budgets in a turbulent economic climate.

Scandinavian states were Europe’s R&D leaders in 2009: Finland (3.96 per cent of GDP), Sweden (3.62), Iceland (3.1) Denmark (3.02). The most recent US and Japanese figures, for 2009, were 2.77 and 3.44 per cent respectively.

Israel is recognised as the world leader in R&D, particularly in agriculture, defence and engineering. Its rate of GDP will be 4.2 per cent this year, according to the US-based Battelle Memorial Institute.

Battelle’s global R&D forecast, published last December, predicted that worldwide spend would reach $1.19 trillion in 2011. Asia’s share was estimated at 35.3 per cent, having overtaken the USA (34.4 per cent), while Europe’s estimate was 23.2 per cent. China had Asia’s largest R&D budget ($153.7 billion), just ahead of Japan ($144.1 million).

“Leading Asian nations recognize that their economic expansion can be sustained by continued commitment to R&D investment across a wide range of science and technologies,” the study said. In contrast, experienced researchers were becoming harder to find in the US and Europe, and European government support for R&D was being hit by deficit reduction plans.

Speaking to agendaNi last year, European Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn warned that research budgets were seen as an easy target for spending cuts. She recognised that North America and Asia were better at getting research to market and Europe therefore had to catch up. Northern Ireland’s performance therefore needs a radical step change if universities and businesses are to reach their potential in the global knowledge economy.

UK manufacturers can create a global edge by backing up their products with high quality support services, according to Work Foundation author Andrew Sissons. The trend, known as manu-services, was the subject of his ‘More than making things’ report, which he launched in March.

Manufacturing is essential for rebalancing the economy and closing the strategic trade gap but the UK is slipping back at the high-tech end. From 2007 to 2010, UK high-tech manufacturing lost a third of its workforce, declining twice as fast as its low-tech counterpart.

Speaking at the Northern Ireland Economic Conference, he explained that manu-services was an entirely new business model, not just an add-on.

Around 42 per cent of manufacturing workers make things but the majority are employed in other processes e.g. design, marketing and after-sales care. Manu-services involves integrating all those operations effectively.

It’s already happening. Complex services are needed to ensure that Boeing’s products (from outsourced plants around the world) match up to specifications. Apple produces the iPhone and then provides after-sales support.

Manu-services often result in manufacturers leasing goods to customers (rather than selling them) and adopting the risk on their products (which they may be able to manage more efficiently). While manufacturers could also lock customers into longer term contracts, the customer could play a greater role in designing the product “and you might not even know when you sign the contract what the final product is going to look like.” Lasting relationships with customers would be developed.

The manufacturing workforce fell from 6.6 million in 1979 to just under 2.5 million in 2010. Services tend to be more labour-intensive and integrating them with manufacturing could help to rebuild employment.

Data suggest that manu-services firms currently struggle and are more likely to go bankrupt. Smaller companies are better at manu-services but less able to get into the market, given the risks involved.

Government policy can support manu-services by creating “world class” networks of businesses, universities, banks and research institutions to develop this work, and by tackling specific barriers to growth. A publicly-backed insurance fund for manu-services could mitigate the risk for smaller companies.

The Work Foundation estimates that manu-services already represent 15-20 per cent of manufacturing turnover and therefore generate around 2 per cent of UK GDP, roughly the same as all lawyers and accountants.

High-tech manufacturing is becoming increasingly competitive, with countries like China catching up, and he sees manu-services as “a new opportunity for Britain to set itself apart”. The processes involved are complex and therefore harder for other countries to copy.

“Given the darkened economic climate, it makes efforts like this as important as ever,” he said. “Really the only way to get out of this sort of situation for Northern Ireland is to focus very heavily on exports. Those exports are going to come particularly from new types of manufacturing.”

Rather than “beating the drum” for manufacturing per se, he urged political leaders to look at the “nuance” behind the changes in the sector and understand its complexity.

www.theworkfoundation.com/reports

The most recently published figures show that Northern Ireland expenditure on research and development in 2010 was the highest ever, with spending by businesses increasing by 6 per cent on the previous year to £344 million, with spend by locally owned companies up 27 per cent to £109.9 million in 2010.

Businesses very clearly recognise the value of investing in new products and processes to keep ahead of the competition and strengthen their long-term position.

In the first half of this year, Invest Northern Ireland made 70 offers to businesses towards expenditure in R&D, with total planned investment of £33 million.

However, the fact remains that too much of our R&D activity remains concentrated in too few companies, and mainly larger ones at that.

Whilst many companies are showing an increased appetite for R&D, Invest Northern Ireland is encouraging more Small and Medium sized Enterprises to become “innovation-active,” particularly in the area of market-led R&D.

For small companies which have never contemplated getting involved in R&D, or maybe have not done so within the past five years, an enhanced rate of assistance (up to maximum 75 per cent, maximum grant £50,000) will be available, whilst small and medium sized businesses which are already benefitting from Invest NI R&D support will also be eligible to apply for up to 45 per cent assistance (maximum £50,000).

Much of the focus is on promoting and encouraging prototype development and exploitation, including funding for prototype development, and identification of the most appropriate route to market. For SMEs, support is also available for intellectual property costs and to support trials and testing.

Applications will be sought on an open call basis, with three separate calls anticipated between now and the end of March 2012. A simplified and streamlined process also aims to encourage SMEs to apply and make the programme more accessible to first-time R&D applicants and enable Invest NI to deliver short, sharp interventions within faster turnaround times.

Invest NI’s established application and/or approvals process will continue to cater for large companies and for SME proposed projects requiring more than £50,000 assistance.

For many businesses, the intellectual property they hold can be one of their most valuable assets. But for many, especially smaller companies, protecting and successfully commercialising their intellectual assets can be a major challenge to manage and to finance.

To assist small local companies with this challenge Invest Northern Ireland has also recently introduced an IP starter pack which includes guides to the main types of intellectual property including patents, trademarks, copyright and design registration. Non-disclosure agreements and information on licensing are also explained.

These measures are part of Invest NI’s Boosting Business initiative to support businesses to remain competitive, invest for the future and grow market share.

For more information about Invest NI’s Boosting Business initiative please visit www.boostingbusinessni.com.

“We’ve got to look for good role models and not merely the nearest but our real problem in Northern Ireland is complacency,” says Graham Gudgin in a sharp critique of the region’s economic culture. Gudgin currently works at Cambridge University’s Centre For Business Research and has analysed Northern Ireland’s economy since 1985.

“The most immediate place to look is the Civil Service,” he says of the problem. “They’ve existed for decades, just shovelling British tax-payers’ money into very willing companies in Northern Ireland.”

He also finds that attitude among many businesspeople, who cannot comprehend an economy without grants.

In his view, the whole system breeds complacency and politicians “don’t want to know any better”. As EU state aid winds down, he blames the Civil Service for ignoring alternatives: “We’ve seen this tsunami coming for several years now and they’ve done nothing about it.” Instead, it is the Secretary of State who has been pushing for lower corporation tax.

Northern Ireland’s decline, though, can be reversed as a smaller country with a more troubled history has shown. Estonia’s business R&D rate quadrupled from

0.16 per cent of GDP in 1999 to 0.64 in 2009. Its overall rate stood at 1.42 per cent. The UK and Irish percentages were 1.87 and 1.77 respectively. Northern Ireland’s in-house business R&D figure for the same year was 1.0 per cent (of GVA).

The Baltic state endured a 58-year Soviet occupation and emerged from communism in 1991. It followed the examples of Finland and Sweden (Europe’s two leading R&D states), building on its existing cultural links.

“Even countries that came out of the Soviet Union [and] did essentially no R&D at all, got their act together and are overtaking us,” Gudgin warns. “The world isn’t standing still.”

Invest NI does give generous grants to companies undertaking R&D in Northern Ireland but not many of these firms exist. He rejects the agency’s “not much we can do about it” attitude.

“This is why [cutting] corporation tax is important in attracting high tech companies,” Gudgin explains. “We’ve got to get our companies more R&D-minded and collaborating with the universities, and perhaps with each other.”

Companies starting up in R&D could receive direct government support but through a very different model. Finland’s state-owned research institute (VTT) employs 3,167 staff and has a €292 million turnover.

“We’ve got nothing like that,” he states. “We could set up an institute that is really to act as a middleman between not only Northern Ireland’s universities but the whole UK universities, to try and introduce that sort of research to companies: to give companies the confidence that they can do it.”

Going further, Gudgin contends that all other business grants should be ended. “Why would you do that?” was the response in Finland and Sweden where the focus is entirely on R&D. A name change from Invest NI to Innovate NI was a no-brainer and “learning by doing” would give the agency a pro-innovation attitude.

In contrast, British R&D has been falling for several declines, partly due to the rapid decline of manufacturing. The UK has “put all our eggs in a sort of financial basket” and the Republic took a similar gamble on corporation tax.

One way that Finland “cracked” the innovation problem was by “mobilising the whole society in collaborating between the education system, universities, civil service [and] companies in a way that we don’t.”

Isolation is no excuse. Finland is nearly twice as far from Europe’s centre as Northern Ireland, and has high tech research centres on the Arctic Circle. To him, the lessons for our small region are therefore very clear.

Disadvantaged by its small size, Israel’s scientific and technological policies are aimed at enhancing its competitive position. It gross domestic expenditure on R&D as percentage of GDP is 4.7 per cent compared to 2.7 per cent in the United States and 2.01 in Europe. Private sector spend as a percentage of its GDP is 3.39 per cent compared to 2.01 and 1.25 in the US and Europe.

Israel’s universities have a strong reputation for technological advancement and all ministries employ chief scientists.

Within government, this work includes the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption’s Centre for Absorption in Science which helps immigrant scientists find work in institutions of higher education, research institutes, colleges or in the business sector.

Since its formation in 1948, the influx of immigrants, particularly from the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s has increased the percentage of qualified personnel in the country. The lack of natural resources has resulted in research policies being geared towards alternatives for raw materials and exporting scientific knowledge. The threat of attack from Iran and Palestinians are cited as reasons for its military research. The conflict with Palestinians is unbalanced due to Israel’s far superior military capability and continual US aid.

Israeli scientists have received four Nobel prizes; three for chemistry (Dan Shectman 2011, Ada Yonath 2009 and Aaron Ciechanover 2004) and one for economics (Daniel Kahneman 2002). Israel has also participated in building the ATLAS detector for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It has invented devices such as the ‘pillcam’, which allows physicians to examine a patient’s gastrointestinal tract with a swallowable camera and is a leader on military drone technology.

Other R&D strengths include the scientific breeding of cows to produce more milk, computerised irrigation systems and soil solarisation i.e. the decontamination of soil using solar power.

Israel hosts eight universities and its research institutes include the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Organisation and the Israeli Association for Artificial Intelligence.

The Israel Science Foundation is the predominant source for basic research funding with 1,000 individual researchers receiving grants which are matched with university funding.

Israel’s R&D capabilities are also measured through its production of patents which far outstrips its EU and US counterparts. In addition, the number of scientific publications within the

10 per cent most cited publications worldwide stands at 12.9 per cent, compared to 11.6 per cent in the EU and 15.3 per cent in the US. Post-doctoral research positions and sabbaticals abroad are encouraged at university and government level.

Business has a prominent role in funding Israeli R&D (it funded 73.4 per cent of the countries R&D spend in 2006, according to the OECD). The Manufacturers Association of Israel and the Federation of Israeli Economic Organisations discuss policy-making on the National Council

for Research and Development (consisting of public, private and academic representatives.) Due to their close proximity, informal direct contact between the public and private sectors is also common.

The 2011 EU Competitiveness Report states that Israel is well integrated into the European Research Area (with five universities accessing €224.1 million to date in FP7 funds). Its main scientific partners are the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy.

Consilium Technologies opens new corporate headquarters in Belfast following recent US expansion.

One of Northern Ireland’s leading tech companies, Consilium Technologies, has announced the opening of its new corporate headquarters in Belfast. The company recently launched a major expansion at their North American facility in Boston and this move will allow the firm to scale its UK operations alongside its US facility. The move coincides with the company’s leading product TotalMobile™ announced as a medallist for the UK Mobile IT Innovation Award.

Previously based in the Antrim Technology Park, the firm has moved all business functions to Pilot Point in the heart of Clarendon Dock, Belfast.

Founded in 1985, the company was originally located in East Belfast. Two years later the team moved to the Antrim Technology Park where it has remained until now. In 2007, the software development team moved to the Northern Ireland Science Park to focus on the further development of TotalMobile™. The move to Pilot Point will see for the consolidation of all business and development operations in one location.

Speaking following the announcement of the new premises, Consilium Technologies CEO Colin Reid said: “Earlier this year we were delighted to announce an expansion to our North American operations. I said then that our US expansion would also have a positive effect here at home in Northern Ireland and the announcement is the first evidence of this.

“The decision to leave Antrim was not an easy one but the Consilium Group has now grown to such a size that we had to look elsewhere for facilities with the capabilities to accommodate all of our staff, under one roof.

“The new office will allow us to merge all operations into a single location. The Pilot Point facility will house our software development team, sales and marketing, business development and customer services. We have great plans for further expansion and we need our team all working together in one place to achieve this.”

Reid concluded: “We will be sad to bid farewell to Antrim. It’s been home to the Consilium Group for 24 years, but Pilot Point is a terrific location, right at the heart of Belfast’s thriving business community. “We have no doubt the move signals the start of even bigger things for us as a company and with TotalMobile™ commended for this award, it has already begun.”

Shortly after the move, Consilium’s latest innovation, TotalMobile™ secured a medal for the 2011 Mobile IT Innovation of the Year at the UK IT Awards. The award recognises organisations that provide leading-edge mobile technologies that create new ways of working and have shown measurable success and customer satisfaction.

TotalMobile™ is an enterprise mobile working solution that allows field workers to complete tasks and share information both online and offline integrating with existing back office systems and databases.

It helps organisations to:

• increase efficiency;

• encourage mutual working ; and

• increase compliance.

It can

• streamline the way mobile workers work

• improve the flow of information

• reduce costs

TotalMobile™’s entry was selected from 1,000’s of applications, to attend the next stage of the process, a judging panel at the Madejski Stadium in Reading. Chief Technology Officer Gareth Tolerton represented the company and demonstrated TotalMobile™’s Inovation and effectiveness. This resulted in TotalMobile™ joining a shortlist of innovations from 10 companies including Tesco, RBS, National Air Traffic Service and Pizza Express and finally being announced as a medallist at the ceremony held by the Chartered Institute for IT (BCS) at Battersea Park Events Arena. TotalMobile™ representatives including CEO Colin Reid attended to accept the medal.

Web: www.ctechs.co.uk
Telephone: 028 9033 0111
Email: info@ctechs.co.uk

Nuclear energy doesn’t necessarily have an essential role to play going forward, but it is not “evil” either, according to William Nuttall.

The academic is Director of Cambridge University’s Management of Technology and Innovation (MoTI) Programme and Assistant Director of its Electricity Policy Research Group.

“In the UK, when the ordinary members of the public think of nuclear, they think of themselves as the potential victims of a future accident, or having to live with environmental or safety fears,” he told agendaNi.

Instead, nuclear should be viewed as a technology with a set of attributes and “should be considered against those attributes” as a potential part of a technology mix that would ensure security of supply in the future.

Nuttall believes that nuclear energy’s attributes could be helpful in some contexts. “Nuclear is low carbon, therefore it shares that attribute with renewable. It is in the frame for consideration without subsidy. Relatively few renewables are able to make that claim,” he explained.

Some renewable technologies are very expensive and are in receipt of significant subsidy but nuclear “doesn’t necessarily require that.”

In addition, nuclear is baseload, unlike variable renewables. “Having said that, the prediction of the renewable availability is improving all the time, and a broad base of renewable is less volatile,” he conceded.

There is the possibility that a nuclear power plant could trip out “and go from 1.7GW to nothing in a few seconds” but generally it will “run for months on end and is humming along nicely making power.”

Overall, “nuclear can be a helpful contribution to a mix of options,” but a 100 per cent nuclear electricity system would be “insufficiently diverse.”

Consumers should think of themselves as people who pay an electricity bill, Nuttall believes. “If they thought more about nuclear energy in those terms, they might start to see more of its strengths,” he continued. “Nuclear could be of lower economic risk to consumers and I don’t think they think from those terms,” he surmised.

In a liberalised, competitive electricity market, generators will make decisions that will reduce their risks and advance their interests: “Basically, there is no reason against them investing in, for instance, a gas-fired power station, because if the gas price goes up, they know the electricity price will go up.”

While the choice of building a nuclear power station is “a very risky and expensive proposition,” nuclear power itself has lower cost risks. “So the public, thinking of themselves as electricity customers, see the company they are buying their electricity from is building a nuclear power station, and they know that they won’t have cheap bills but that their bills will have a lower chance of going through the roof. In some sense they’re protected,” Nuttall illustrated.

Furthermore, Nuttall does not believe that 27 different energy policies is in the European interest and instead suggests a centralised approach: “I think that energy policy is naturally an issue that should be the exclusive competence of the European Union and all aspects of energy policy should be passed to Brussels.”

Why do we need the GI strategy?

Trevor Steenson

The Northern Ireland Geographic Information strategy is very similar to strategies in Europe and the rest of the world in that it is trying to co-ordinate the use and dissemination of geographic information.

There’s a lot of spatial and non-spatial data in government which has a great value. There’s also a high cost if we don’t use it correctly i.e. collecting it many times, not re-using it, not being able to match it and combine it.

In the UK we don’t have a mandated spatial data infrastructure. We have to rely on co-operation of the data holders, and that’s what the strategy is trying to address.

Joep Crompvoets

In Europe there are 20 strategies like this and I was very impressed with this strategy. It is comprehensive. The issues that you are tackling are really wide, for example, business and case studies of GI in practice.

Mick Cory

Across the world, not just in Europe, the UK strategy is recognised as being an exemplar of what a strategy could do. I’d like to think that Northern Ireland is leading in the UK in the development of this GI strategy.

There are challenges with implementation, particularly in ensuring significant senior ownership for it. The implementation of GI strategies in Japan, Australia and Canada are advanced in this regard.

John Wilkinson

In terms of leading LPS for the past four years, I’ve seen the huge value that can be released in having a GI strategy and making use of the spatial data and information. My role is championing this at departmental board level and also amongst the Permanent Secretaries Group in Northern Ireland.

Over the last 12 months we had one of our GI targets – the delivery of Inspire – as a key target within the departmental business plan. A year ago, we renewed the Northern Ireland Mapping Agreement on the use of GI and spatial data across all of the departments.

More recently, I’ve been involved in the development of next year’s business plan. I’ve talked to colleagues about getting GI onto the forward strategy for the department, and making sure that we keep this on the agenda.

How has the use of GI data changed over the years?

Paul Crisp

The big change has been opening new channels into GI data outside the old proprietary technology routes. Organisations that own the data should see that once they invest that effort into it, they can recoup the costs and can add new value by being able to combine it with new data sets.

It is important to understand the currency, accuracy and the access and licensing considerations around that data, rather think too much about the technology.

Terence Brannigan

The biggest issue for the private sector is being aware of what data exists and having access to it. That kind of data has exceptional value in the market place. We need to make it accessible, but because it has value, there is an opportunity for government to offset cost by charging for that information.

I don’t think the private sector would have any issue with that. It’s about access to information and understanding what information is there, how you can use it and the power of that information.

Trevor Steenson

Terence is right. People don’t know where the data is or whether there are licensing implications. Even if they do get data, they can spend a lot of time having to cleanse it.

A lot of the thirst for data has been driven by the smart phone market. Half-a-billion smart phones were shipped this year and this will rise to 1.5 billion in 2015. In America about 50 per cent of the use is connected with location-based activity.

Google led the way on the widespread use of mapping. Our frustration is why the good spatial data that’s available from government is not so widely used.

Mick Cory

The Location Council’s user group includes members from the public and private sectors, academia and the third sector. It’s interesting that all of those sectors see the potential in GI. Some are quite new to the scene but as soon as it’s presented in terms of the opportunity, they are keen.

There’s quite a lot of movement at UK Government and EU level on open-data initiatives. That’s about repositioning government and how it should break down some of these barriers to access such as pricing, licensing and technical challenges, such as ensuring that the standards are being dealt with appropriately and that information received fits together and makes sense together.

Licensing, pricing and accessibility are still seen as the significant barriers. Technology has moved on; now it’s about reducing the organisational and institutional barriers that exist.

Joep Crompvoets

When I was reading the strategy, what struck me was how to govern this? You have highlighted three ways of governance in the product management: by hierarchy, by networks and by market.

By hierarchy, there are a lot of rules. I like the approach of networking corporations. The markets, as a governance mechanism, are quite weak in this strategy. I would like to see more about how the markets can facilitate an environment where we meet the markets.

Trevor Steenson

The Northern Ireland Mapping Agreement means that it is free at point of use for government departments. That’s fine within government, but it doesn’t get it to the wider sectors. The difficulty is that the update and maintenance of the mapping has to be paid for.

Where some other initiatives involving free data have succeeded, the data itself has quickly become out of date. If the data is going to be used effectively, it has to be up-to-date and accurate, and that’s difficult in free or low-cost licensing models.

Mick Cory

Within the UK Location Programme’s user group there is a real expectation that data should be free. Where government is already paying to collect data for its own business purpose, what is the argument for not making it available for free elsewhere? Particularly in these straitened times where you wish to encourage the development of the economy.

The key thing is deciding whether government is paying fully for its data collection needs today. Reflecting on the users’ perspectives on this, where government enters into the market, sometimes government gets confused between its public purpose and these revenue generating measures. There are examples across the world where the revenue generating activities create commercial behaviours that actually distract from the public purpose of what the agency was set up to do.

Many users, particularly in the third sector, have concerns about the Government making money in this way because they are, particularly in today’s Big Society agenda, being expected to provide things on a not-for-profit basis but having to pay commercial rates in order to access the information that is of value to society.

Paul Crisp

One of the things we are interested in is opening up new channels for land and property data and new revenue creating opportunities potentially for our LPS partners. At the same time we’ve got confidentiality and copyright issues. The existing access routes in also have revenue streams that pay for that service to the people of Northern Ireland and pay for the maintenance of the assets; so there’s a balancing act.

People are coming to the Land Registers and saying: “We’d love to look at your data through Google Earth or through this other map that we’ve built: if only we could get at it, if only we could licence it.”

To be honest, access to a live picture of the Land Registry or Ordinance Survey large-scale map base is quite easy on the internet because so many interoperability standards have been adopted by third-party vendors, such as Google, ESRI and Oracle.

Is this part of a wider trend? Clinton’s Digital Copyright Bill in 1998 moved the value from the publishing to the telecoms industry i.e. people have value and lose it.

Terence Brannigan

Business understands that if there is value, we expect a cost.

You have to let them know the information is there and explain to them what it can do for them. Then, you need to make it accessible and have a reasonably straightforward way of paying for it.

By not changing, I believe the information will not get the maintenance or recognition it deserves and will not be valued in the way it should. The private sector won’t leverage it in the way they could either.

Mick Cory

A vital point is the ability to explain the potential and government should incentivise creativity and innovation in the use of information.

Selective availability on GPS signals was removed by President Clinton in 2000. Look at the explosion in navigation applications since. Up until that point, it was not in the public interest to free up access to those signals.

Mapping agencies had been talking for 15-20 years before that about the potential of navigation systems but had failed to come up with an application. Releasing GPS-selective availability is a classic example of where innovation can generate economic value.

Paul Crisp

It also generates problems, of course. You can now get a very accurate reading of where you are on the Earth’s surface and the mapping agencies and Land Registry have been challenged with position improvement. They’ve got to get their data as good as the signals. That requires huge investment.

Trevor Steenson

The cost and licensing of data is just one particular strand. The UK Government have recognised the value locked up in government data. Northern Ireland may be slightly behind in that although our ministers are now starting to realise the benefit of getting data into wider use.

Most of government data has a locational element and we hope to leverage that in the GI strategy.

John Wilkinson

There needs to be a clear view of the direction of travel. I agree with Mick’s point in terms of what are you doing this for and what’s the value?

The delivery mechanisms through LPS, the Land Registry, HMLR and OSGB are all very different. For example, in terms of investment in IT, you need the capital to do that. Those four bodies have different capital allocations and different capital investment strategies. There’s so much variation and I am slightly concerned at the speed at which this is all moving.

Paul Crisp

The big change has been the explosion in mobile devices and new tools like Google Earth. BT could certainly do more with its own spatial data assets. My interest has ended up moving away from the consuming applications and to the quality and availability of the data – the brand and reputation of the organisation is part of this. For example if you want a reliable source of news, you’ll go to the BBC. The web hits will follow the quality.

Joep Crompvoets

What I find striking is the poor link with the users. We did a survey for the Commission and asked all the national contact points in Europe about whether they had a precise idea of the use of infrastructure and information. They have no clue, in general. They are so involved in establishing and implementing it but not about use.

Mick Cory

The Inspire Directive is possibly one of the most significant enablers in that it legislates and forces public authorities to make information available through a standard infrastructure. However, it’s a Directive to meet environmental information needs for the EC. The infrastructure is being created by data publishers but the users’ voice is not clearly being articulated.

Trevor Steenson

I’ve heard the same charge levelled at the data.gov.uk portal. There is a lot of data available but at the moment it’s difficult finding out just what data is most appropriate for a particular use. Metadata is the key to discovery.

Where are we going to in the future? Are we at an inflection point?

Trevor Steenson

A lot of the future requirement for spatial data is going to be driven by social applications because more and more of those type of applications are linking to spatial data. With government releasing its data and recognising that it is good to open up data there is also a recognition that the best way for people to understand the data is in a spatial context because people can immediately relate to it.

We are very fortunate in Northern Ireland in that the education sector has realised the power of GI, not just in geography, but across the whole curriculum, and have put initiatives in place to educate the children of today. It will deliver the skills in 10 years time but in the meantime we have a skills gap.

Paul Crisp

I know BT’s investing quite heavily into research in linked data and the map then becomes an index to the data not a thing in itself. Standards, once they become embedded, become forgotten about. Like the light bulbs in this room, for example. You can buy a light bulb from any vendor and plug it in and it should work. That will start to be the case with access to information as well, and it will be the quality and the performance of the data that get that counts.

Terence Brannigan

What the public sector needs that information for and the way in which it needs it will often be very different from the private sector. From a private sector perspective, creating value from a revenue stream will allow you to keep the data right up to date and bring in the right kind of infrastructure behind it to keep the power of it going. You’ve got a great brand because data’s very important only if people believe it to be correct and true.

Mick Cory

Inspire is creating the infrastructure through which this will be accessible. And part of that is that there will be recognised core reference data that everybody requires, and that is the definitive authoritative source of government-created data. Mapping is a classic example of that.

As information’s becoming available on this infrastructure, people are realising there are other obstacles such as licensing.

In Open Street Map, lots of enthusiastic individuals go around and create an alternative map. If they had access to the authoritative map, they would still be enthusiastic and use GPS to collect information on top of that map; that would be far more powerful.

Paul Crisp

A very good example of benign crowd sourced enthusiasm is all these 3-D models that people have built within Google Earth right round the world, but they’re actually sitting slightly above or slightly below the surface of the Earth or not quite aligned with the true street map. So they might be beautiful but they’re not useful. If they were aligned with the true base map, that would open up a whole new world.

How do you see the governance developing?

Trevor Steenson

Often GI strategies have been led by one enthusiastic individual. They move on and somebody else comes in their place. With this latest strategy, we’ve tried to put governance in place that takes it beyond the individual, additionally, if the user is not represented the strategy will not achieve its aims.

John Wilkinson

The future’s going to be dictated not just by the demand and the use but also the ability to supply. In terms of refreshing the mapping, we’re going to do that more quickly with the new camera.

What advice would you give about engaging the private sector?

Terence Brannigan

If you own something that has a value, then you need to get out there to realise that value. The only way to do that is to engage with the private sector, but in a very broad sense, and understanding: “Who will it have value to and in what forms?”

That value can be anything from making you more efficient, to making you more competitive and making value for you in terms of a product, or it can give you an edge in the marketplace. It’s actually understanding what that can do for you as an organisation. You need to engage on a sectoral basis because the private sector will not easily understand what you’ve got and how you can use it.

Mick Cory

Some of the big retail outlets are very smart in the use of GI. The whole Nectar system is underlined by a huge amount of spatial analysis. They get it.

Terence Brannigan

The people who already have significant advantages are, in the main, external private sector parties but yet our home-grown talent are not getting use of that data because they don’t know that it exists, how to access it or understand the value.

Mick Cory

My vision for it would be to release that creativity in the small to medium enterprises (the apps and so on) and encourage people to develop those opportunities, and I think there’s a lot of potential for the economy there.

What one issue is key for the future development of GI?

John Wilkinson

Enabling the use through training, development and spreading knowledge and awareness.

Mick Cory

Incentivising people to actually start to use the information. Create a small innovation fund. Put it out there.

Paul Crisp

Recognise the value of the public sector in data quality and delivery. Addressing (gazetteers) is a role that government organisations should look at taking on.

Joep Crompvoets

I see an e-government world and a GI world, and we can both learn from each other. The GI sector is very strong on sharing and so is government. Why not integrate those initiatives?

Trevor Steenson

Northern Ireland has a great advantage in that it’s small enough to enable us to engage locally and it’s therefore easier to bring people on board. I would like to see the same investment of resources in shared data as we see in shared services.

Terence Brannigan

In these economic times, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that for things that don’t have a recognised value, there is a risk of them withering on the vine. I would be concerned about a lack of continuing investment that would be required to keep this at the leading edge. If you release the value, you create the opportunity for the ongoing investment.

There is little point in ‘doing’ social media if it does not meet your business objectives, according to Robin Hamman. Too many organisations are ending up with a presence that’s not interesting and does not help its audience.

“It is about the user,” he states. “It needs to be meaningful and it needs to result in measurable outcomes.”

Robin Hamman is Director of Digital at the UK office of global PR firm Edelman. Born in Illinois, he has lived in the UK since the 1990s. Hamman was previously the BBC’s Senior Community Producer, teaching BBC staff how to engage new audiences online.

The aim of his work in broadcasting was to bring audiences closer to programme- makers and editors by “letting them ask questions, point to facts or people that they think might be interesting within the story, and providing feedback once that story has gone out.”

He realised that this approach could be applied elsewhere: “People with skills like this, skills to seek out and engage directly with audiences and stakeholders, are becoming increasingly important within businesses.”

Hamman adds: “It’s not just about describing products and services that already exist, and then trying to flog those. It’s increasingly about understanding what audiences and stakeholders want and getting the business to actually point itself in the direction to fulfil those needs.”

Edelman sees the world of digital as three “different but interconnected” spheres: own, social and search.

The first sphere includes the corporate website which puts forward the organisation’s views “but in most instances it does very little to attract people who don’t know about you already or to meet their needs.”

In social media, people participate “across the web wherever they choose to”.

The ‘social media embassy’ is a concept that sits between those two spheres. This is a brand- or organisationally-controlled presence in social media. It’s not owned by the brand but, like a real world embassy, offers a door for constituents or stakeholders to “knock on”.

Hamman continues: “People are increasingly spending time in social media and, rather than trying to attract them and bring them across to their organisational website, it’s a lot easier to be out there participating, where they might stumble into you and then engage.”

Links from other websites or in online discussions will raise a company’s search visibility on Google.

To look at it in another way, brands and companies exist in a “multi-stakeholder ecosystem”. Those stakeholders include the media, investors, regulators, unions, employees, customers and potential recruits.

However, organisations tend to silo their activities into different departments (marketing, sales, recruitment etc.) with each one having its own budget, digital systems and internal processes. He describes that space between the silos as the “gulf of organisational complexity” and social media can help to cut through it.

“With the tools available, it is possible to understand what your audiences and stakeholders want from you, to respond to them, to engage them in coming up with new products and services, or indeed to get them to assist you when a problem does arise,” Hamman remarks.

On the last point, social media allows companies to create spaces where customers can help other customers to overcome their problems with a service or product.

When approaching social media, businesses must recognise that all staff are representatives of the brand. The average person on the street does not see the person to whom they have spoken as a ‘someone in recruitment or marketing’ but instead sees “all one business.”

Businesses can “harness” how employees talk about their jobs online (e.g. via facebook): “Most of the time it’s positive, sometimes it’s neutral and occasionally it’s negative.”

First and foremost, this means having social media guidelines. As an extension, a brand can encourage its staff to communicate with their own networks on its behalf.

PepsiCo, for example, employs around 150,000 employees globally. He suggests that getting even a small percentage of those employees to “communicate on behalf of the brand in a way that’s contextually relevant” to their friends would have a “multiplication effect”. The employee would share that message with audiences that have similar interests to him or her.

From an historical perspective, social media brings back one-to-one contact between businesses and their stakeholders or consumers.

“Over the last 50-100 years [there] has been a time of mass production, mass communication and mass consumption,” he reflects. “You still get the benefits of doing things at a mass scale but you can engage directly one-to-one with those audiences and consumers. It’s quite interesting what that allows businesses to do.”

Customers and stakeholders are potentially “much happier” and engagement “helps them feel part of what the business or organization is trying to achieve.”

Edelman promotes “digital public engagement” and “meaningful participatory frameworks” that align the behavious of stakeholders with measurable business outcomes. Relevant questions include: “Who is my audience? What do they want to achieve? How can I help them to achieve it? And then how does that meet my business objectives?”

The BBC, for example, learnt lessons from its initial audience forums. Viewers and listeners were asked to simply ‘have their say’ on programmes. This resulted in “a flood of content that was oftentimes inappropriate or low quality or not relevant”.

Better results came when the audience was asked a specific question e.g. whether they knew someone who had experienced a particular medical condition and might like to be interviewed about it. Two or three people came forward; the contact was useful for them and the broadcaster.

“When you look at social media more broadly,” he surmises. “It can look like anarchy and where it’s interesting is where it’s doing something meaningful.”

Mobiles and silos: a case study

Robin recounted the experience of a mobile phone network that has become somewhat of an industry case study of how connecting up external and internal facing processes can cut the time required to deal with customer service incident. The network is said to have launched a new mobile phone handset where the battery was meant to last four or five days. Customers soon realised that it went dead in three to four hours.

The launch took place on a Friday and the customer care team cancelled leave over the weekend to take complaints. However, no-one told the marketing and advertising teams. Front page ads went ahead in the Saturday papers. The problem only got worse.

On Monday morning, a member of the technical team happened to be at a meeting with the marketing and communications reps. He soon figured out the problem: default software settings meant that antennae were always looking for connections, causing battery to burn out. A video was shot, put on YouTube and was used to show customers how to change the settings.

A summary of BT’s work

BT has developed an impressive track record of providing transformation for local and devolved government bodies, including those in Northern Ireland. Our expertise in this arena has evolved to complement BT’s long-standing core competency in ICT. It now embraces innovative commercial models, a complete range of people and change management skills, and the ability to deliver economic benefits such as job creation and regeneration at a regional level.

Here is a look at our track record: different challenges, bespoke solutions, and the consistent delivery of significant benefits.

Case Studies

In 2000, BT was chosen as strategic partner by Land and Property Services for Northern Ireland (LPS), formerly known as Land Registers of Northern Ireland (LRNI). The agency is responsible for recording details of legal interest pertaining to land in Northern Ireland. LRNI was faced with legislative change, reliance on paper records and manual processes and a requirement to enhance customer service.

BT provided the capital for the transformation programme, and an incentive structure was created to drive growth of the LRNI business. BT delivered a range of systems integration and implementation services, as well as change management and business consultancy and a full upgrade of the

LRNI ICT estate. The outcomes have included major productivity gains, customer satisfaction and external recognition for the project.

At about the same time, BT was embarking on a strategic joint venture with Liverpool City Council, creating Liverpool Direct Ltd., with a £58 million investment from BT to enable a wide range of service improvement initiatives. As with LRNI, ICT transformation was fundamental, along with creation of call centre capability to drive customer service and process re-engineering. BT also effected significant culture change for the council, creating HR and payroll systems that foster a proactive, engaged ethos.

In the first five years of the partnership, the council’s cost base was reduced by over £100 million, and Liverpool went from being a poor performing council to one showing upper-quartile performance across all its KPIs when measured against industry standard. Employees and users of the council have benefited immensely.

In 2008 BT embarked on a radical and ambitious partnership with South Tyneside Council, with objectives far beyond business transformation alone. Given the economic decline of the 1970s and 1980s in the region, the council has decided to prioritise socio-economic regeneration alongside the improvement of already high-performing authority services.

BT has created a wholly owned subsidiary, BT South Tyneside Ltd., which has committed to investing £23 million in service transformation. BT is also committed to creating 750 jobs over the 10 years of the partnership, generating over £200 million in gross value-add. Targeted reductions in procurement costs, streamlined processes (for example, for housing benefit claims) and enhanced benefits and career opportunities for council staff who transferred to BT South Tyneside Ltd via TUPE, are also part of the commitment.

The early indications point to success on Tyneside. 375 jobs were created in the first two years, ahead of the target of 300, with another 280 announced just last month. 84 per cent of service performance indicators have improved, and customer and employee satisfaction ratings are both above 90 per cent. BT’s approach is delivering on the ambitious commitments made to the people of South Tyneside.

Looking to the future, BT has just signed a strategic, 10-year partnership with Lancashire County Council which has resulted in the creation of a jointly owned subsidiary, One Connect Ltd., to provide ICT and back office services for the county council and schools in the region. Among other benefits, this will deliver £100 million in savings to the council over the lifetime of the deal, by delivering new technology more quickly, and providing core services such as HR and payroll more effectively.

The challenge for Northern Ireland

HM Treasury’s consultation document of March 2011, “Rebalancing the Northern Ireland Economy”, summarised the UK Government’s view:

“The Northern Ireland economy faces major challenges over the next decade [the] economy has some historical strengths which it can build on, underpinned by the peace process. However, it also has some long standing weaknesses such as the low productivity and low employment rates.”

This is a challenging message to leaders and stakeholders in the economy here, but the opportunities to drive productivity and employment cannot be ignored. Technology can be the cornerstone of improving existing services and delivering new ones, but BT has now developed the innovative commercial and partnership models that allow the management of risk, the transformation of capability and the delivery of wide-ranging economic benefits.

Ed Vernon is Strategic Advisor to BT Ireland, and his comment on how to respond to the challenges of the last few years is resonant: “Business leaders have become more risk-averse and need to reinforce financial disciplines. They need to be flexible with costs by aligning to incentives and performance; move online to drive scale and efficiency; bring in others to look out for blind spots; and stay close to their people and customers.”

At BT, we believe our track record demonstrates what we can offer local and devolved government authorities in Northern Ireland, building on the strategic partnerships and shared services we are already delivering with the public sector here. Our local expertise is available to co-ordinate and leverage the experience of our global brand and capability.

Testimonials

Our partners discuss their experience working with BT

“We were impressed with BT’s track record and its technology made the proposal stand out. BT’s innovative approach to financing the project was extremely attractive to us and made the whole programme possible.”

Wally Gamble landweb Project Manager Land Registers of Northern Ireland

“We’re getting the benefit of BT’s expertise in communications technologies as well as support for the process of business transformation. I think that’s a pretty compelling offer. The joint venture partnership with BT has been a huge asset in the recovery of Liverpool and the transformation of the city council.”

Colin Hilton Chief Executive Liverpool City Council

“We were looking for a partner to help drive the long term strategic priorities of South Tyneside. With a proven track record, we chose BT to help improve economic prosperity, generate significantly more jobs and locate BT’s local government operations in the borough, kick-starting our major regeneration of the South Shields riverside.”

Martin Swales Chief Executive South Tyneside Council

“Almost two years in, the partnership has met or exceeded all service delivery targets. Despite the recession, job creation is now ahead of schedule, the business centre is under construction and savings are being delivered to the council as promised. Satisfaction amongst TUPE’d staff remains high. As an excellent council our standards were high and BT has shown that our outsourced services and staff are in safe hands and that they can be relied upon to deliver what they promise.”

Alan Holt Partnership Director South Tyneside Council

To find out more about BT’s new model for central and local government in Northern Ireland, please visit us online at:

www.btnorthernireland.com/business