Expansion for Global Watch scheme

A DTI Global Watch Service product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 28, 2004

The Department of Trade and Industry is strengthening its global reach to help British businesses keep abreast of the world's latest scientific and technological advances.

The Department of Trade and Industry is strengthening its global reach to help British businesses keep abreast of the world's latest scientific and technological advances to help improve their productivity and competitiveness.

Launching the DTI Global Watch Service annual report for 2003/4, Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science and Innovation, told industrialists that the service was helping firms of all sizes to interact beneficially with global partners but that there was much more to be done.

To help businesses further, Lord Sainsbury announced that in the next year the service was going to: increase from 16 to 22 the number of DTI International Technology Promoters, who provide support to British companies ranging from information and referrals to more in-depth assistance with, for example, licensing arrangements and technology transfer; double from 34 the number of inward and outward Global Watch Secondments of industrialists who can work in world-class firms for up to a year acquiring the latest knowledge, skills, technology and essential business connections; increase the number of Global Watch Missions from 21 to 30 - enabling teams of UK experts to investigate innovation and its implementation at first hand; stage a regionally focused promotional campaign in concert with regional players; and organise a number of national events in the key technology areas of life sciences, performance engineering, information and communication technologies and environment and sustainable energy technologies.

The annual report shows that last year alone the Global Watch Service enabled 160 companies, intermediaries and academics to visit 12 countries through highly focused visits covering a wide range of emerging technologies; provided inward and outward secondments to 15 countries - all involving high-tech industries; and facilitated more than 1000 face-to-face meetings between UK firms and validated overseas contacts with the potential to collaborate on innovation issues.

In addition, promotional activities reached more than 200,000 targeted individuals and included numerous seminars and conferences attracting in total more than 5000 delegates.

All this activity was backed up by the monthly Global Watch magazine, highlighting overseas technology opportunities, and the quarterly UKWatch magazine, promoting British innovation to foreign audiences, and the unique website, which delivers immediate and innovative support to UK companies in the form of fast-breaking worldwide business and technology information.

An independent evaluation survey of the impact of the Global Watch Service - a number of its elements being organised by the international innovation company Pera - concluded that participating client companies are innovative firms who exhibit very high levels of satisfaction and achieve significant and attributable benefits.