A short film which shows the work, aims and impact of DIUS. In addition to featuring the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary, the film includes short interviews of various stakeholders including college principals, students, business and partner representatives
Ian Watmore, DIUS Permanent Secretary
Well what excites me about this job is the fact that it's got the twin challenge of creating a Whitehall Department from scratch, which is an opportunity you get, you know, once in a lifetime, but at the same time doing the policy agenda that really matters to this country, right at the heart of the Prime Minister's vision, and something that impacts businesses and individuals right up and down the United Kingdom.
John Denham, Secretary of State
You really have a sense that what you do and what the rest of the Department does will help determine what sort of country this is in the next ten or fifteen years.
Ian Watmore, DIUS Permanent Secretary
I would like us to be the place where innovation flourishes within Whitehall, and I would like us to be the place that when people look at us they say we are the exemplar of what Whitehall Departments should look like.
Peter Davies, City Lit College Principal
City Lit is the UK's largest adult education college, and we provide about three and a half thousand courses a year to 23,000 Londoners. We see tremendous difference in people's self-confidence and ability to actually integrate in society but then to actually also get on in jobs.
Ruth Silver, Lewisham College Principal
Without basic skills courses, actually people's lives would be very stunted indeed. They are the foundation of all other learning.
Annette Anderson, Drama Foundation Course (1 year course)
It came to a point in my life where I needed to find something else to do, and found City Lit. I found that I had some talent, from being a very discouraged person to finding that I had a lot of talent and a future. The childcare is paid for, because I wouldn't be able to do the course otherwise. It's completely changed my life, it's opened up brand new doors for me. I'm just way more confident than I was.
Peter Davies, City Lit College Principal
We are changing people's lives.
Ruth Silver, Lewisham College Principal
The courage with which DIUS has grasped the Skills Agenda, the drive towards this clarity, the sharpening of focus on programmes and the high focus on rewarding quality, at last, makes it much easier for learners to find their way in that world.
Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA
We see ourselves right at the heart of a partnership, a consortium of organisations which work together, and DIUS really has acted as a kind of benevolent parent to all of these organisations, making sure that an organisation like NESTA has the independence that it enjoys but equally is able to collaborate and cooperate on a wider scale at the right moments. And I think DIUS has really understood extremely well the powers of partnership and the powers of independence.
Sir Martin Sweeting, Chief of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd
The UK is going to depend on its intellectual capital, and it's that intellectual capital and exploiting it through innovation that then will create wealth through enterprise. So having the initial innovative drive is actually going to be what this country's going to need to rely on in the future.
Christine Gaskell, Bentley Motors
Apprenticeships are a wonderful way of getting the people to contribute to the success of a business.
Apprentice 1
Working in a proper working environment has obviously helped me learn a lot of new skills.
Apprentice 2
When I started the apprenticeship I had no motivation, and at the end of it I was just amazed by what I could achieve.
Graham Atherton, Aimhigher Central London Partnership Manager
DIUS' policy in particular through its support of Aimhigher has opened up opportunities for young people to go to university that didn't exist before.
Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA
We know that the lessons that we learn from the ventures that we back have to be translated into public policy, and that's really been a very, very strong part of our relationship with DIUS.
Kevin Wong, Co-Director of the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine
DIUS refocuses us in towards areas which allow us to join the dots between pre-university education, university education and then onto research and industry in general, and I think it gives us a chance to make something in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Graham Atherton, Aimhigher Central London Partnership Manager
Because in a university's perspective it hopefully will bring that focus on what universities should be doing, support their local communities, to work with employers, to focus on developing graduates to have the skills that we'll need in the 21st Century.
WorldSkills Competition
The competition at WorldSkills has brought me a lot of confidence.
It looks very good on your CV to say that you are a Gold Award Winner.
Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA
I think that DIUS should lead from the front, and the Department and the people who work within it have the opportunity to demonstrate that not only do they have innovation in their title but they themselves are just that, they are innovative, they're creative, they're flexible. They are the change that they want.
John Denham, Secretary of State
It's a job that really makes a difference, and if we succeed then we succeed for the whole of this country.
