KE Index

I trust by now that most readers of this column have read the summary of our Knowledge economy index baseline report. It was prepared on the basis of publicly available data by Oxford Economics, sponsored and supported by the Northern Bank. It used the tightly specified metrics developed by CONNECT in San Diego for marking their own progress from cold-war economy to leadership of the knowledge economy for the USA. If you haven’t yet read the piece, let me exhort you to consider the four page summary at least, which you can download from The NI Knowledge Economy Index. We’ll be holding public events to discuss it and hopefully to agree collective short-, medium- and long-term targets, against which we can plot our progress into our future.

We did this work to define Knowledge Economy, to show that it is very possible in our situation and that it is not for “egg-heads” only. My only regret is that I failed to persuade others to do this baseline ten or at least five years ago. I allowed objections like “patents don’t really count for a lot” or “this isn’t really for a wee place like Norn Irlan” to win the day. Because of that, we can’t prove just how far we have come but I think many will know, if they think about it for a minute, that our report describes a very different Northern Ireland from ten years ago. Granted you have to allow that it’s an indicator only. In a painting metaphor, it’s not a Canaletto, more like my favourite, a Turner.

Let me give you some personal indicators included within the body of the data.

When I came home to create the Science Park, CBI economic affairs meetings were concerned mainly about the unit price of electricity and the state of the roads, classical topics for the CBI. Today we debate knowledge and skills.

A salary survey showed that in Northern Ireland’s private sector, there was on average no premium for a degree.  The KEI showed that in those segments of the private sector even here, the premium is now 50%, close to the national average.

Ten years ago, there were only a few experienced lawyers in intellectual property (IP) but few deals were done. Today in firms like Warner Chilcott, Almac, CSR/APTX and others, IP strategies and tactics of international quality are being devised and enacted. In support, we must have over a score of IP lawyers, who are not cheap to keep and who therefore must be gainfully employed.

Highly qualified people show as very, very likely to be in a job, whereas unqualified have a high chance of not being in work. Here then is our great challenge, for everything in a knowledge world needs education and evidence of having been through it successfully.

The other day a huge ship docked opposite the Science Park, North Sea Giant. She is a massive vessel only one year old with three Voith-Schneider propellers, more like underwater helicopter rotors, really. These keep her perfectly on station in everything but the most severe North Sea storms while she lays the fibre optic of the internet, the natural gas pipes to keep us connected to the North Sea gas fields or places into position the ever larger wind turbines keeping our houses lit.

I suspect there is no-one on board without a tertiary level qualification but some will also be very tough indeed. Truly the knowledge economy is for everyone!

Knowledge: The Key to Economic Transformation

This Thursday represents a significant moment in the development of a Knowledge Economy here in Northern Ireland, when the inaugural ‘Northern Ireland Knowledge Economy Index – Baseline Report’ is published. This is an important step in establishing exactly where we are in our aspirations to become a Knowledge Economy and importantly will benchmark us against other comparable regions in the UK and further afield.

It represents a significant piece of work for the Northern Ireland Science Park, underpinned by extensive research and analysis by Oxford Economics and delivered in partnership with Northern Bank.  It will analyse exactly what we mean by a knowledge economy and define the various metrics against which we need to measure our performance. It is at one level an exercise in the philosophy of Socrates – ‘Knowing Thyself’, giving an honest assessment of where we are across key metrics, be they good or bad, so we know where we need to improve. More importantly it will spell out the scale of the opportunity that faces us as an economic region, if we can collectively up our game and raise our ambitions. It will be used to set targets across all the main metrics for the next 5, 10, 15 and 20 years and become the focus for all those involved in the knowledge sector.

Without wishing to jump the gun, the report is clear that the opportunities for the Northern Ireland economy are huge, with tens of thousands of new jobs – both directly and indirectly – on offer if we could become the leading region in the UK for knowledge intensive business. While this is an ambitious target it is entirely realistic and grounded. It will demand both public policy reform and private sector input and energy like never before, but it most definitely can be done.

If we need any evidence that this type of economic transformation is possible we will be joined on Thursday at Stormont Castle, when we launch the report, by someone who has been at the forefront of a similar transformation in San Diego. Once labelled America’s “Bust” City it is now one of the world’s most successful knowledge economies. Mary Walshok, co-founder of CONNECT, San Diego, will share with us the experience of the US city region which has a population of 1.3 million and which faced losing 100,000 jobs following a sustained period of economic decline and an overreliance on its failing military and aerospace industries. A sustained and collaborative effort by the private, education and public sectors transformed the economy through facilitating the convergence of scientific invention, entrepreneurship and smart capital. Today the knowledge economy represents 11.2% of the economy’s employment and generates a full quarter of the region’s wages.

We should copy their ambition. We are already modelling the San Diego experience here under the NISP CONNECT programme. If we can continue to build momentum and improve the public policy environment this could have a transformative effect on the Northern Ireland economy; increasing employment (directly in terms of high end technology jobs and indirectly through support and service jobs) , wages and reducing the dependency on the public sector. Traditionally our aspirations here have been low, happy to be among the average or simply to not be at the bottom. As San Diego’s experience shows, this is a time to be more ambitious and to set our sights much higher. We have the talent, we have the will and we now need to harness both to deliver a step change in our collective economic fortunes.

For anyone who wants to put a shoulder to the wheel, you will be able to get a copy of the report from our website after Thursday – www.nispconnect.org. Even better, feel free to join us for a debate about the Report on Thursday evening at the Science Park – 5pm-7.45pm.