A GCC-UK trade deal could bring investment in the critical infrastructure needed to transform the regions between Oxford and Cambridge universities into a tech hub, said a British business leader who is part of UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves' delegation to Riyadh.
Ms Reeves is in Riyadh this week seeking to close the long-negotiated trade deal, as well as new partnerships and investment for the UK’s universities, and plans to develop its tech infrastructure.
There had been a “series of conversations” about the Oxford-Cambridge corridor during the trip so far, said Andrew Roughan, chief executive of co-working space, accelerator and tech consultancy Plexal. State-owned investment funds in the region were particularly interested in investing in the infrastructure, he told The National.
“It's quite clear from some of the conversations with particularly the sovereign wealth communities within the Middle East, that actually the role of infrastructure growth in all countries but also in the UK, is very attractive for them to invest behind,” he said.
“That's led to a series of conversations about the Oxford-Cambridge arc, which is … a target for investment of those sovereign wealth communities,” he said. This includes “the opportunities around housing, around rail and road infrastructure.”
Ms Reeves spoke of the corridor at an event at the Future Investment Forum on Tuesday.
“We're developing that corridor between those two universities to create … greater links and greater opportunities to expand those cities and their research capabilities and the businesses that come out of them,” she said.
Expanding university partnerships
University partnerships are also being pursued and expanded.
Ed Bussey, chief executive of the fund Oxford Science Enterprises which has a portfolio of companies spun out of Oxford University, told audiences at the FII of how these companies are having an impact in the GCC through the science breakthroughs made in the energy market.
Mr Bussey is part of Ms Reeves’ delegation as is Andrew Williamson, managing partner of the multibillion pound fund Cambridge Innovation Capital, who has just been appointed to the board of King Abdallah University of Science and Technology.
The University of Strathclyde is to open a satellite campus in Riyadh. “The life sciences and engineering capability that Strathclyde has will be helpful in driving trade and the movement of talent and research,” Mr Roughan said.
Mr Roughan said he was impressed by the “sense of positivity” about the UK since arriving in Riyadh on Monday – despite domestic pressure on the UK government to improve the economy.
“The sense of positivity is quite palpable here, which is a nice break from some of the normal UK feeling. It feels like the world of opportunities, certainly opening up,” he said. “The UK is both valued and can have a material future impact.”
Plexal is based in London’s Olympic Park and works with the UK government on its programmes, including in the Middle East. It has organised the UK’s cybersecurity fellowship for women in the Gulf, and the British embassy in Oman’s cyber security training programme for small to medium sized businesses.
It will also publish a report on the opportunities for areas designated for high technology industries to be “twinned” with other tech hubs around the world.
Aligning strategies
There are efforts to find common ground between the UK’s recently announced 10-year industrial plan and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
Mr Roughan said an “alignment” between the two government strategies were there. “There’s a lot of conversations around how we can use that alignment for both public and private sector investment,” he said.
“So, particularly role of technology and AI, the importance of infrastructure, not only in acting as a foundation for industrial growth, but also as an investment product itself,” he said.
Conversations were also centred around how the UK’s financial services could support Riyadh’s Vision 2030, through dual listing of Saudi companies in London.
Seeking talent
But Ms Reeves was challenged on Tuesday about the tightening of UK borders since the Brexit vote in 2016, and asked whether this clashed with her efforts to attract foreign investment.
“We need to do more to stop illegal migration, but we're very much open to the top talent from around the world,” she said.
“Just recently, we've doubled the number of visas for all of our global talent visas. That's for high net worth individuals, graduates from the best universities around the world, and also for researchers, particularly in some of those growth sectors like AI and life sciences, to our universities,” she said.
She was confident the UK would “fill those places”.
Mr Roughan said recruitment was an “age old challenge” for the tech industry in the UK, and that the private sector will always want more talent in the country. University collaborations were one way to bridge this.
“There's a lot of talk about university collaboration going on at the moment, which inherently brings with it, obviously the high end of talent that comes from universities within collaborative projects that can then drive research into products,” he said.
“I don't suppose there will ever be a permanent solution to attracting talent, because with the global marketplace comes a global competition. But certainly the chancellor has been speaking very positively about the potential to fill those visa slots that have been released now,” he said.
