April 2021

An event with a real purpose The purpose of the Summit was to create an ambitious annual, national platform to bring together the many voices of UK manufacturing. By celebrating resilience, ingenuity and diversity and by facilitating discussion and debate, new partnerships will be created to support future collaborations that enable change for a better, sustainable future. The Summit aimed to create a vision of partnership and collaboration, providing all our attendees the opportunity to learn, share ideas; inspiring the continuous innovation required to meet their individual and collective challenges. The UK manufacturing sector employs more than 2.7m people, generates more than £275bn in exports, and is critical to all those who rely on it to fuel their own economic wellbeing. Few would argue that the last 12 months have brought into sharp focus the importance of an agile manufacturing community in fighting any future crisis. While the purpose was clear, designing, creating and launching a new national platform to bring together the full spectrum of the UK’s manufacturing community to a single, virtual event was not an easy feat during a national lockdown. When explaining how the team at the MTC aimed to achieve its aims for the Summit, MTC Group Marketing Director, RichardWatkins who was key to the extraordinary technological design and management of the event said,“ To bring together representatives from the full breadth of manufacturing stakeholders and fromacross the UK, we needed to create an event with that was its equal in size, scale and ambition. We also wanted to show the sector that in spite of the lockdown, we could create the type of event people have traditionally travelled to a large venue to attend, and still gainmany of the advantages of this type of conference, but to do it virtually.” We needed to create real impact and practically demonstrate theMTC’s ambition to support the manufacturing communities fromacross the UK and across all sectors. TheMTCworks withmajor international manufacturers through to SME’s and start-ups, with amazing ideas that need support to bring themtomarket. Wewanted the Summit to represent, and have content that was relevant to everyone involved inUK manufacturing.” Base Camps build the momentum towards the Summit A climber does not reach the top of any mountain without stopping, taking the time to review and analyse the journey to date and assess what still lies ahead. n NATIONAL MANUFACTURING SUMMIT 2021 REPORT KATHERINE BENNETT CEO Designate of High Value Manufacturing Catapult and NMS Speaker The National Manufacturing Summit has been a great success, bringing together the twin concepts of a summit as both a meeting point and the mountain-top goal we should strive to achieve. I hope the event will continue in the years to come building on the dialogue and collaboration this year’s gathering has begun. “ AL PEASLAND Head of Technical and Innovation Partnerships, Williams Racing Any event that enables positive discussion, debate and collaboration in the manufacturing sector should be viewed positively. The ambition of the National Manufacturing Summit is what made the event stand out for me, and I was delighted to speak at the first base-camp and the Summit, and I also benefited from attending a number of the webinars. “ DR CLIVE HICKMAN CEO of the MTC and Chairman of the Midlands Manufacturing Resilience Commission (M2R) The Summit provided the perfect platform for theMidlands ManufacturingCommission to update on its progress to the largest possible audience. This is key as we look to engage manufacturers fromall sectors to help drive the change needed across the region’smanufacturing and technology-based industries. I amproud of all those involved that have delivered an event of such scale andwill positively impact and benefit somany in our sector. “ RICHARD WATKINS MTC Group Marketing Director The capabilities required to deliver the National Manufacturing Summit showcased the transformation in our events team’s capabilities over the past 12 months. From its inception the project was ambitious, but the size and scale helped create the ‘impact’ that ensured the high levels of engagement from across the sector. “ CHRIS WHITE Director of the Industrial Policy Research Centre The manufacturing sector will play a vital role in the economic recovery – providing jobs and local growth, whilst adapting to issues such as the climate crises and emerging technologies. The Summit was an opportunity to showcase and celebrate the sector, recognise our sense of community, and be confident about the future. I hope it will become a regular feature in our national calendar. “