Chemicals Sector Charges Ahead
England's Northwest has a long history of innovation in chemicals and science. Pioneers such as Sir Henry Roscoe, who opened the UK's first practical chemistry laboratory in Manchester in 1857, and the Lever Brothers, who founded their eponymous soap manufacturing company (now Unilever), down the road in Warrington in 1885, have their roots firmly in the region.
Today, the Northwest is the UK's largest regional centre for chemical manufacturing and one of the largest in Europe, with a global reputation for excellence in the field. It is the home of innovative industry partnerships like Chemical Innovation, the knowledge transfer network for the chemicals industry, which is based in Runcorn in Cheshire; leading research centres such as the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC), set up by a consortium of universities in Manchester, Liverpool and Bolton; and global players in the chemicals industry, such as Unilever, AstraZeneca, Tata Chemicals (formerly Brunner Mond), Asahi Glass and IneosFluor.
IneosFluor is, in fact, one of several multi-national chemicals companies either headquartered or with a strong presence in the Northwest. Based in Cheshire, it supplies propellants to a quarter of the world's asthma inhalers and it was the first company in the world to produce commercial replacements for aerosol CFCs. Another Cheshire company, AstraZeneca, is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, with a major international R&D facility at Alderley Park, while petrochemical giant Shell has its UK chemicals base at Ellesmere Port.
With names such as these, it is perhaps no surprise that the chemicals industry is the region's largest exporter, accounting for 60 per cent of exports. The Northwest boasts an enviable range of chemical manufacturing and research facilities, producing everything from large scale bulk commodity chemicals to added-value speciality polymers, while housing pioneering R&D in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals fields. Around 800 companies, ranging from worldwide operations to small businesses, employ 51,000 people. The region is renowned for its skilled workforce and solid education infrastructure in the chemicals and related industries, with particular strengths petrochemicals, paints and coatings, speciality polymers and cleaners and detergents.
With its high-calibre graduates from the largest concentration of universities in the country, there is a constant stream of talented new blood in to the Northwest's chemicals sector. The University of Manchester's School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science is recognised internationally for the quality of its teaching and research. Its Morton Laboratory, opened in 2003, is the only one of its size and type in a UK university, and contains the same equipment as a working chemical manufacturing plant. Manchester university is also home to the Molecular Materials Centre, a collaboration with Liverpool university and industry partners, which has a growing reputation in the field of inorganic materials chemistry research. Along the M62, the University of Liverpool's chemistry department was ranked sixth in the UK in The Guardian's latest university guide. Its research programme has notable strengths in organic and bio-molecular chemistry, catalysis and materials chemistry.
Building on this strong academic knowledge base, high-tech fine and speciality chemical companies are spearheading the on-going development of not just the chemicals industry, but of a whole range of industries throughout the country, developing cutting edge products that often play a key role in fast emerging sectors such as nanotechnology, regenerative medicine and advanced manufacturing.
