‘Why are you trying to build a Space Park in Leicester? You don’t really have a space industry there.’ This question posed to me by a civil servant at a conference in 2015. At the time it left me somewhat perplexed, but I was clear on the logic and the ambition within the University of Leicester team behind the idea, and it underpinned our vision. Our plan was to attract businesses to our city. They would come because we would develop a competitive eco-system underpinned by world leading research and a strong flow of talent.
In the context of “Levelling Up” and “Place”, the economic watch words of the past three years, such a question, posed today, would not just be perplexing, but contrary to prevailing economic policy. The reality of levelling up and place-based growth, requires ambition and investment from government which must be combined with vision and action from regional players. When Space Park Leicester was conceived in 2014, there was no discernible commercial space industry in the City or County.
There was a small clutch of businesses, which had emerged from the presence of a small division of Airbus, but nothing of real scale. It was, however, was possible to discern more than a core of activity in the National Space Centre, with its National Space Academy both of which had emerged out of the University of Leicester, one of the most prominent space research institutions globally. The university has long been a hub of academic excellence in space research, including, earth observation and geospatial analysis, physics and astronomy, instrumentation and space engineering.
Critically, more than 10,000 students graduate annually in relevant STEM fields in the wider region – about 8% of the total UK’s yearly STEM graduates. Most of these graduates were leaving a regional economy that has not provided the relevant opportunities to build a career in technology driven industries locally. At 33%, Leicestershire has one of the lowest graduate employment levels in England.
