Powering Progress: How Cranfield will bring the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy to life

The keenly anticipated UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy is now published, outlining eight key areas for investment and growth.

The Prime Minister writes that it’s a “golden opportunity” and the report foreword says that in “…a world of enormous and exciting possibility” this strategy is “…a plan born of partnership”.

Partnership, with industry and government, is something that is core to us at Cranfield University.

Since our foundation in the service of the nation by Atlee’s trailblazing post-war government, we have been a bridge to support industrial innovation through our applied research and innovative teaching in technology and management.

In many ways Cranfield is already bringing the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy to life, and this week we’re busy preparing for our graduation ceremonies where we’ll be celebrating our 2025 graduates. It’s one of my favourite times of the academic year.

A weighty, nationally important strategy and an excitable bunch of graduates (and academics) may feel worlds apart but here’s the thing – they are intrinsically and crucially linked.

Higher-level skills crucial for delivering the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy

In my role at Cranfield, I have the privilege of regularly speaking with industry leaders. They say that higher-level skills gaps are a persistent issue and one we really must get to grips with if the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy is to be delivered.

This week I’ll be seeing people graduating with MSc and PhD degrees in Advanced Manufacturing, Energy and Sustainability, Aerospace Engineering and in many other areas relevant to the strategy such as AI, robotics, business and digital.

And our specialist courses in defence and security feed into the Strategic Defence Review’s focus on ‘one defence’ in training and education, delivering in-demand technical and leadership skills for security and emergency services, military, governments and NGOs.

The answers to the skills gaps will be there in front of my eyes.

The qualifications and experiences our students take into the workplace are exactly what the Government needs to deliver its strategy.

These are highly motivated, career driven and talented people, and they’ve been working on real-world industrial challenges throughout their courses at Cranfield. Many of them have studied with us part-time while holding down demanding jobs.

Brilliant minds focused on applied research

Also within our ceremony hall this week will be some of my academic colleagues. With people from all over the world creating our diverse staff community at Cranfield, I was really pleased to see the Global Talent Fund announced yesterday – which will attract even more exceptional researchers to the UK.

These brilliant minds have a special direction at Cranfield where we focus on industry applied research that makes a big difference in the real world.

Take for instance the work of Professor Antonios Tsourdos who has led many projects with industry to quite literally navigate the increasingly complex world of airspace management. A project on autonomous and vertical take-off aircraft, the air taxis of the future, had lift off recently as a new vertiport was completed in Bicester, with Cranfield’s academics and students playing a critical role in capacity planning and ensuring all the navigation systems were working together.

And if I turn to advanced manufacturing and materials, my colleague Professor Krzysztof Koziol worked alongside industry and with students to create graphene-based biodegradable gloves – a more durable and sustainable alternative to conventional surgical gloves.

Down in Exeter, Professor Tom Budd was at the airport for the UK’s first hydrogen-powered turnaround of a commercial aircraft. Our specialist knowledge has helped demonstrate the potential for using hydrogen in airside vehicles at airports, a big step towards decarbonising airport ground operations.

Of course environmental security is hugely important to us all – our recently announced research projects in water will create nature-based solutions to cleaning water and a way to quickly remove ‘forever chemical’ pollutants in our water systems. Working in partnership with industry, these innovations will have a real impact on our lives and on the UK’s environmental goals.

And announced just last week, Cranfield’s part of an advanced manufacturing hub to tackle the challenges involved with integrating AI into complex manufacturing systems. It’s yet another example of how our expertise, facilities and partnership working comes together to drive progress.

It’s Cranfield’s close and trusted work with industry that makes advances like this possible. Our enduring partnerships with organisations such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems are effective both in applying our expertise to real problems, and in giving our students an amazing experience working alongside industry.

As the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy makes clear, it’s crucial that we commercialise innovation for everyone’s benefit. Our recently-announced collaboration with Midlands partners is just one example of how we’re driving this and bringing inward investment to research in areas that have huge potential.

So the significant support for R&D in the new strategy is very positive – and will help us to continue to build innovation that has a real impact.

World class facilities bring ideas to life

Our highly talented academics and students also have at their disposal some of the best near-industrial scale facilities at our campuses.

Alongside large wave tanks, a glasshouse, and a robotics lab, we of course have our own airport and research aircraft, a hangar lab for large-scale aerospace projects, wind tunnels and a dedicated autonomous vehicle stretch of road.

We’re also developing a national test facility dedicated to creating synthetic fuels and zero carbon fuels from waste, helping to decarbonise heating and transport.

Work is underway on the Cranfield Hydrogen Integration Incubator, with new test cells nearing completion and a research centre under construction – a big step forward for homegrown clean energy development.

And I’m really excited about the upcoming testing of one of the largest rig builds on campus – HyPER – which will lead the development of a new, clean hydrogen production process in the UK.

Universities have a key role in bringing together government, industry and academia across the UK to push forward R&D using these kinds of specialist facilities.

Be in no doubt – this is key to the success of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, and I also believe firmly that universities have a critical role in convening key people within our regions.

Strengthening regions will deliver growth

Just a few months ago, I chaired a roundtable for industry and government leaders from across the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, with Lord Vallance. The energy was fantastic, and participants outlined both barriers to growth, and opportunities that could be achieved for the region – the enthusiasm for partnership was clear.

So it is very positive to see support in the strategy for the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, which Cranfield is at the heart of. The focus on strengthening connections around regions to bring more businesses into the orbit of academic collaboration is to be welcomed.

That’s something that has real impetus already in our region, and Cranfield is well positioned to strengthen the growing cluster of businesses specialising in AI, manufacturing, energy, defence and business services identified as key sectors in the strategy.

Add in the arrival of Universal Studios to our region, and there is a huge appetite locally for us to build and grow across a number of sectors outlined in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

Driving the potential of SMEs

It’s also really pleasing to see more support for SMEs in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy with regulatory burdens reduced and support for adopting new technology. The Growth Corridor has an exciting ecosystem of entrepreneurs and startups, with huge potential to drive economic growth.

Our Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship proudly helps these SMEs and entrepreneurs develop and scale-up their ideas through short courses, helping over 1,000 businesses in the past four years. And our partnership with Green Future Investments Ltd has seen 98 ventures progress through a pipeline of technical support and funding, with over £19 million raised in grants and investments.

It’s key to work with businesses at all stages to help them bring their ideas to life, whether that’s the bright spark of a startup or collaborating to solve an industrial problem for a multinational. Universities, with their academics and students, have a critical role to play.

Although a lot of the current narratives around universities tend to be negative, I for one feel hugely optimistic at how our institutions can help Government achieve its goals and realise growth ambitions.

“…together, we can build the proud, high skilled, economically vibrant, and fairer country that working people want,” the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy foreword concludes.

And I know this week I will be surrounded by eager and brilliant graduates and colleagues, who are going to make it happen.