Newcastle University and UK Science Park Association become new members of CaSE

Newcastle University and UKSPA have joined over 110 organisational members of CaSE.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Dr Sarah Main, Executive Director of the Campaign for the Science and Engineering, said:

“I am delighted to welcome Newcastle University and the UK Science Park Association as new organisational members. Today’s announcement underscores the high-quality innovation, research and teaching being undertaken across the whole of the UK.

I look forward to working with these two organisations alongside all our members to better understand their needs and priorities. Newcastle University and UKSPA will expand and enrich CaSE’s voice as we seek to ensure that the UK has the skills, funding and policies to enable science and engineering to thrive.”

Professor Chris Day, Vice-Chancellor and President, Newcastle University, said:

“We are proud to have world-class research excellence in a range of science and engineering disciplines and are therefore delighted to support the valuable work of CaSE in further developing the education, skills and research agendas in this area. Joining CaSE will assist us in building on our pioneering research and support our highly talented students to discover and reach their full potential whilst promoting the importance of science and engineering outside academia”

Jim Duvall, Executive Director, UK Science Park Association, said:

We are delighted that UKSPA is now a member of CaSE. We firmly believe that our highly innovative and world renowned members will be a valuable addition to the campaign’s objectives. Members of UKSPA have been in the business of creating the right environment to support both the creation and growth of technology-based businesses for over thirty years. The emergence and growth of science parks and similar innovation environments throughout the UK has helped create many thousands of scientific, technical knowledge-based businesses. UKSPA in its partnership with CaSE further highlights its total commitment to ensuring the UK has the skills, knowledge base and support the science and engineering sectors need to continue to lead the world in innovation.”

More about our new organisational members:

Newcastle University

Newcastle University is a thriving international community of some 27,750 students from over 130 countries worldwide. As a member of the Russell Group of research intensive universities in the UK, Newcastle has a world-class reputation for research excellence in the fields of medicine, science and engineering, social sciences and the humanities.

Its academics are sharply focused on responding to the major challenges facing society today. Our research and teaching are world-leading in areas as diverse as health, culture, technology and the environment. The Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF) placed Newcastle University 16th in the UK for Research Power and the vast majority of our research (78%) was assessed to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

Newcastle University is committed to providing our students with excellent, research-led teaching delivered by dedicated and passionate teachers. This is reaffirmed by achieving the best possible outcome – a Gold Award – in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Newcastle is placed joint top 9 in Europe for teaching excellence in the Times Higher Education Europe Teaching Rankings.

UKSPA

The UK Science Park Association (UKSPA) proudly represents innovative knowledge based environments. The mission of UKSPA is to be the authoritative body on the planning, development and the creation of Science Parks and other innovation locations that are facilitating the development and management of innovative, high growth, knowledge-based organisations.

Founded in 1984 by the managers of the eight Parks that then existed, UKSPA has gone from strength to strength. In the last thirty years the number of Science Parks has grown significantly. There is still a strong regional, and local focus to the association. However what has continued to happen over the years is that many more UK Universities and centres of excellence in research have recognised the unstoppable trend, and inherent value of Science Park development and have created parks with associated management structures to help drive and technology up the value chain by supporting tenant companies across a wide range of activities.