£25m technology institutes come to aid of local learners and firms

Higher education minister Margaret Hodge has announced the successful bidders for 18 new technology institutes to share £25 million.

The institutes will be regional groupings of universities and colleges. They will work with small businesses to identify high-tech skills shortages and to devise programmes that could lead to PhD-level qualifications. About 10,000 people are expected to be taking part in training under the scheme by 2005.

Peter Rodgers, who led a successful bid from Leeds Metropolitan University, said the institutes would help make West Yorkshire more attractive to companies by providing essential information technology skills, but he stressed that there was also a widening participation element.

"The key to this will be the development of new progression routes from foundation degree all the way through to PhD," he said. "We are aiming to excite people with new job opportunities while offering them a broad-based education."

The curriculum would be focused on the needs of small businesses. The LMU consortium, which includes Leeds and Bradford universities and six further education colleges, has corporate supporters that include Microsoft, Asda, Cisco and British Telecom.

Microsoft group manager Marie Taylor said the company had committed nearly £500,000 to the scheme because it recognised the urgency of dealing with skills issues at a regional level.

Phil Dutton, IT director at Asda, said: "A facility that trains and supports a broad range of information and communication technology skills should be invaluable to the local economy."

The Higher Education Funding Council for England is paying for the scheme. Its chief executive, Sir Howard Newby, said the institutes demonstrated the importance of the partnership approach in tackling skills gaps.

The universities that succeeded in the bids are: Bath, Bournemouth, Central England, Central Lancashire, Coventry, De Montfort, East Anglia, East London, Essex, Hull, Kent, Kingston, Leeds Metropolitan, Loughborough, Manchester Metropolitan, Northumbria, Reading and Teesside.