Universities
Successful companies need outstanding people. Fortunately, England's Northwest offers a well-educated, skilled and entrepreneurial workforce. Exceptional numbers of talented young people graduate from the region each year and the majority choose to stay within the area. Tapping into this vital resource enables companies located here to thrive in today's competitive marketplace.
With Europe's largest concentrations of universities providing 50,000 graduates per year, the Northwest produces graduates of the highest calibre, particularly in business, computer science and foreign languages.
As the UK's largest single site university, the University of Manchester boasts the size, expertise and resources to compete on a global scale. With 28,000 students and a budget of £500 million, it includes world-class teaching and research capabilities and is at the forefront of new discoveries in science and engineering. In addition, the university is one of the world's leading centres for biomedical research.
Elsewhere, there are a further 13 Higher Education institutions in the region - including renowned research universities like Lancaster University, a leading higher education institution that has won international recognition for the quality of its teaching and research; and The University of Liverpool which offers 230 degree courses across 103 subjects to over 19,000 students.
Our universities are commercially astute. All university research centres encourage close co-operation with business - and the region's innovative clustering strategy ensures an ideal environment for Research & Development as well as an excellent local supply chain. Among the locally-based companies that have pioneered highly successful R&D facilities here are AstraZeneca, Unilever, BNFL and BAE Systems. In addition, twenty research groups across the region achieved the top rating (five-star) during the last assessment in 2001.
With scientific research playing such an integral part in the region's Higher Education activity, significant investment has been attracted to industries like Biotech, Energy, Chemical and Healthcare.
