Power and pride in collaboration says Sheffield engin

How different our world is today.

For the mayor, productivity is so much more than a dry, economic concept.

He told Parliament how all of us want to live productive lives, ‘to leave the world a better place than we found it’, a place where our children ‘grow up full of ambition and aspiration’, where ‘wealth is created and invested in our public services, our people and our communities.’

The impulse behind the mayor’s vision is the same impulse that inspired the manufacturers, medical professionals and people of Sheffield to establish The University of Sheffield more than a century ago.

To this day, a plaque at the entrance to the university’s Firth Court building pays tribute to the ‘citizens of Sheffield’ who donated the equivalent of £15 million to establish a university ‘within reach of the child of the working man’ to improve the health and wellbeing of the people; tackle disease; drive innovation and growth; and help the nation in its trading relations around the world.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, that vision has never been more relevant. As a city and a university, we have come together in countless ways to contain and defeat this enemy.

Scientists from the university’s infection, immunity and cardiovascular disease department, in collaboration with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals’ virology team, sequenced the first two genomes of Covid-19 in the UK: crucial to the development of a vaccine and are now part of a national consortium sequencing more than 120 genomes a week to gain the upper hand against the virus.

At the university’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, we have also been at the forefront of a national and regional effort to support the NHS.

As with our medical researchers, our effort is hugely collaborative: bringing government, industry and research together in a common effort to meet the Prime Minister’s urgent plea for the manufacture of 30,000 ventilators in time to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed when the pandemic peaks.

As a new recruit to the university, my first three months in the job have been exhilarating and humbling. From my previous role as managing director of a number of businesses within the Siemens organisation, I thought I knew a little about building teams and coping with stress.

Leading the team that installed the baggage handling system in the world’s busiest airport without disruption to passengers was a tall order, but these past few weeks have been even more of a challenge.

What I have learned from my experience in Siemens and three intense months with the AMRC is that great teams are capable of great things.

Looking around me at the way Sheffield and the university has responded to the pandemic, I am in no doubt our region has the skills, talent and the determination to not only survive these challenging times, but to prevail.

The power of collaborative teams is truly amazing and a lesson we must learn from this crisis.

As a region and a nation, we must also recognise the vital role manufacturing plays in the life of any advanced economy.

The lack of ventilator units and other vital protective kit for frontline healthcare workers has exposed the UK’s vulnerability to disruptions in complex, extended supply chains.

But this challenge is also an opportunity to grow and expand more resilient and sustainable supply chains here in the city region and across the North of England. It is also an opportunity to use our talent as an emerging digital hub to weave a digital knowledge thread through these supply chains, so manufacturers have early sight of emerging and potential disruptions to the delivery of components vital to the final assembly of lifesaving and other equipment.

It is welcome that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said the government’s commitment to levelling up will not be thrown off as a result of Covid-19, as it is only by levelling up spending on innovation across the country that we will overcome the productivity challenge and make the UK more resilient.

No one yet knows when Covid-19 will be tamed or when the global lockdown will be eased, but one thing is for certain. When it happens, Mr Jarvis will be revealed to have been right to put productivity at the centre of the region’s renewal.