Throughout the research carried out in WP3 it was observed that the triple helix could be stronger in terms of collaboration between stakeholders and the different components. Although there is good work going on, it is often fragmented or happening in silos. We have established that there is
- A very strong research community, MASTS, based at ST Andrews university.
- A very well-established employability support partnership via opportunities Fife.
- Excellent potential for growth in both the blue and energy sectors and a number of policy incentives and action plans relating to this.
As such, it would be pertinent to try to strengthen the connections amongst the triple helix and this could be achieved by the establishment of a blue growth skills consortium. This was done very successfully for a cluster of Financial technology (Fintech) companies in Fife. We would seek to adapt the same methodology and approach to the development of a blue growth skills consortium.
Ideally this would be a cross sectoral group bringing together all partners within the triple helix; employers policy makers, academia and cluster representatives. The intention would be for this group to share resources, best practices and to develop bespoke educational programmes and academies aimed at meeting recruitment and innovation challenges with SME’s being front and centre of the group.
The group would meet regularly, agree actions, find common challenges and work towards creating programmes to overcome them.
In addition to improving networks and collaboration between stakeholders this would bring additional opportunities in terms of raising awareness, marketing, identifying opportunities and resource sharing
Skills Gap Addressed
- Overall Lack of collaboration amongst partners in the triple helix.
- Building and strengthening of clusters and bringing a coordinated approached to improving innovation and skills shortages.
- Intention to build linkages across the various sectors within the Blue and Energy economies.
Objective:
- Increased level of collaboration between stakeholders and partners within the triple helix.
- Increased opportunities for marketing, sharing success stories and raising awareness about the blue and energy sectors.
- Opportunities to share best practices and approaches to innovation.
- Could assist in attracting inward investments from companies in the blue and energy sectors.
- Increase attractiveness of careers in the sector, BlueSTEM, increase employer interactions with primary secondary and tertiary education.
- Better connectivity and a more coordinated approach to recruitment.
- Opportunities to identify areas for upskilling staff, life-long learning.
- Opportunities to pool and share resources.
- Opportunities to meet common recruitment challenges by creation of academies/ training programmes.