Innovation and Skills confirmed in January that a new National Skills Academy (NSA) for Composites and Biotechnology would be developed.
The Academy, which will form part of the National Skills Academy for Process Industries, will receive up to £1.98m of funding over three years, matched by employers. It will work with employers, the Life Sciences Advisory Council, the National Composites Centre and specialist training providers to develop new professional standards and training programmes that meet the rapidly evolving and highly particular skills needs of these industries.
The new academy will deliver training through a network of accredited providers. Over three years this is expected to grow to around 30 of the highest quality training providers in the UK. Both units of the academy are expected to be up and running by the end of the first quarter of 2011.
Skills Minister John Hayes explains: "Composites and biotechnology are highly competitive sectors around the world and both are poised for substantial growth. If we want to secure that growth and investment in the UK, it's vital that we can provide a highly skilled workforce. The Academy will bring government agencies, education providers and employers together, delivering world class training to keep Britain on the cutting edge of technological progress."
BSI estimates that the UK Composites sector currently has a turnover of around £1.5bn, employing over 40,000 people. It also states that recent annual growth for carbon fibre composites has been 15%. The NSA will be used to support further growth in low carbon technologies and ‘light weighting’ of major structures such as wind turbine blades and aircraft wings. The key role of the NSA is to raise the quality of composites training as well as improving the skills of the existing manufacturing workforce with composites-specific skills. This includes working with the Sector Skills Councils to develop and implement new apprenticeship frameworks that will deliver more advanced training.
Phil Jones, CEO of the NSA for Process Industries adds: “In recent years industries utilising composite materials have innovated, expanded and thrived and the new spoke of the Academy will further enhance this by developing a more consistent approach to training in the sector, enhance the knowledge base in the sector and ultimately act as a catalyst, propelling both smaller and larger companies into new markets.
“There is a lot of in-house training being carried out by employers and until now there has been no accreditation for this. We are able to comprehensively assess employer training and give employers recognition for the quality of their in-house training provision.”
“We work in close partnership with our sister organisation, Cogent (the sector skills council for the science-based industries) and this development will also see us working closely with Semta (the sector skills council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies) on areas that may overlap. This will also aid us in identifying future training needs through their research programmes.”
www.process.nsacademy.co.uk