Pictured above: David Hardman

George Osborne's comments in the recent Spending Review announcement that scientific output is forecast to grow over the four-year Spending Review period, due to budgets being protected is good news for the West Midlands Knowledge Economy. 

Dr David Hardman, managing director of Birmingham Science Park Aston, comments: "The Government has made it clear it understands that the Knowledge Economy is key to helping drive future growth and job creation, so it is pleasing to see the science budget will receive no cash cut and the £4.6 billion annual spend will be preserved, albeit not enhanced. 

"The UK's science base is the powerhouse for the future of the Knowledge Economy. The next generation of technologies will derive from this fundamental research, and as such, the UK's knowledge base is a key asset for the economy at large. 

"The Government's emphasis on further research into clean and green technologies, which will help reduce the UK's carbon footprint whilst also driving economic growth, has to be welcomed. However, we are still in the dark in many areas. 

"The abolition of delivery organisations, such as AWM, and huge cuts to Local Authority budgets only fosters further uncertainty about how initiatives to support new start-ups - such as our own Entrepreneurs for the Future scheme - will be delivered here in the region in the future. Unfortunately, we're still waiting for further clarification of how this will impact us on a regional and local level and we need to understand how the new Local Enterprise Partnerships and national innovation strategies will actually work. We also need direction on how support for the Knowledge Economy will be structured to promote the translation of innovative technology developments into new commercial products and services."

Birmingham Science Park Aston (BSPA) has recently announced it will become the UK's first 'science park without walls'. This is being made possible due to the Park's new relationship with technology giant Cisco and through being welcomed onto its Global Exchange for Growth programme. The Ideas and Communications Suite that will be launched at BSPA in January 2011 will feature Cisco TelePresence equipment and will create direct links to other centres of creativity locally and in locations such as San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Barcelona and Dubai. 

BSPA's Ideas and Communications Suite will include two 52 inch screens to enable real time, highly interactive meetings to take place around the clock. The new technology will use the Park's advanced broadband facility, which has a connection and response time that equals the best on offer anywhere in the UK. 

BSPA's Ideas and Communications Suite relies on three further organisations; JANET (UK), the University of Warwick and Tata Communications. 

JANET is a publicly funded initiative that connects 18 million end-users across UK education and research institutions. Universities, further education colleges, research councils, specialist colleges and local government are connected to each other through the JANET network, enabling the traditional boundaries of teaching, learning and research methods to be extended with high performance computing facilities and large data storage facilities. 

BSPA will be linked into the JANET network through specialist exchange equipment donated by the University of Warwick. This equipment has been donated specifically to provide unrivalled access amongst educational and research institutions, SME's and start-up ventures, who have previously encountered commercial or technical barriers to utilising these technologies.   

The University of Warwick will be installing a number of its own Cisco TelePresence suites simultaneously to the creation of BSPA's Ideas and Communications Suite, which will be directly linked to the Park. The unique access to the academics at the university - which is ranked as one of the top 35 in the world - will give BSPA's SMEs and start-ups a leading edge in driving their businesses forward. It will also provide the first local connectivity that will help drive regional innovation-led regeneration.

In addition, Tata Communications is working with BSPA to connect to an even wider community. Through Tata's 'Communications Global Meeting Exchange' the science park without walls will be able to schedule virtual business meetings between any of Tata's Public Telepresence suites located throughout 21 major cities across the globe. This network reach creates a truly global collaboration platform.