| I am delighted to have been invited to Godmanchester today to visit your new Technology Development Centre and be the guest speaker at your opening ceremony.
I am particularly pleased to be here because CDT is an excellent example of what this country does best which is "creative science".
The founding of your company came out of work done in the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, and the invention of light emitting polymers there, and you are leading the world in the commercial development of light emitting polymers.
UK - Leaders In Science
The UK has always been a leader in "creative science" and this has resulted in us being world-class leaders in industries which depend on elite science such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace, opto-electronics and biotechnology. But it is clear that many more industries could benefit from the excellence of our science and this is increasingly being realised around the world.
Government Spending On Science
The Government sees universities as being at the heart of our productive economy, not as a burden on it, as the previous government did. Our successes in high-tech industries have only been possible because of the excellence of our universities in basic research and in educating our young people.
To enable them to perform their critical role in the knowledge economy, the Government has put extra resources into the science base, after it has suffered a decade or more of neglect and underfunding.
The 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review increased the science budget by 15% over three years. And in the 2000 Spending Review, Government continued its programme of investment by adding £725 million to the Science Budget over three years, including specific funding to boost research in key new areas, such as genomics, that will shape life in the 21st Century.
To give you a scale of that funding, from 2001 to 2004, the Science Budget will increase by 7% per year in real terms. We are beginning to see the signs of a brain gain rather than a brain drain.
Government Supporting Spin-Offs - Knowledge Transfer
New ideas are part, but only part, of the wider process of innovation that is essential to wealth creation, and of course, equally, the quality of our lives.
In the Science and Innovation White Paper published in 2000, we also set out a range of policies to speed up and support the rate of innovation.
These included University Challenge (which provides seed corn funding to universities), Science Enterprise Centres (which provide access to entrepreneurial skills to undergraduates and graduates in science and engineering), and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (which provides funding to universities to encourage them to do knowledge transfer).
These are already beginning to show impressive results. Last year there were 199 spin-off companies from British universities, compared to an average of 70 each year for the previous 5 years.
And for every £1m of research funding we get more spin-offs than even America.
But we need to turn more of our spin-off companies into world-beating ones. It is very encouraging that we now have companies in Cambridge such as Virata, ARM, Autonomy, CellTech and CAT, but we need many more to be successful in world markets.
The Flat Panel Displays Sector
Turning now to your sector, the widespread use of information systems is dependent upon the availability of efficient displays, and Flat Panel Display technologies are of critical importance in helping to drive the global electronics revolution.
Displays is a field in which the UK has world-beating expertise and a world-class science base - thanks mainly to the work carried out in many of our universities.
I am sure that through your work here, there will be many new and exciting developments to come in the area of Light Emitting Polymers.
Market Growth And Opportunities
All the evidence would suggest that the market for Flat Panel Displays - already worth over $25bn - will continue to grow at a very health pace.
LINK programmes - general.
The Government will do all it can to help companies exploit the excellence of our science base.
The LINK scheme is the Government's principal mechanism for promoting partnership in pre-competitive research between industry and the research base. It aims to stimulate innovation, increase wealth creation and improve the quality of life generally.
LINK programmes are long-term programmes, typically between 3 and 6 years, which have proven over the years to lead to industrial success. In fact, research by CDT carried out under the LINK Photonics programme in the mid-1990's helped to develop some of the polymers that you are now successfully exploiting.
Since March 1995, 34 new LINK programmes have been announced, worth at least £518 million in terms of support from Government and industry.
This is a measure of government's determination to help in this area.
New LINK Information Storage and Displays Programme
In February this year we also announced a brand new programme aimed specifically at the Information Storage and Display sectors. The programme is worth £24 million in total. Half of this money is being provided jointly by the DTI and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the rest of the money will be "match-funded" by the industry.
This is an exciting time for high technology industries and the opening of your new Technology Development Centre marks an important step forward for your company. I hope that it will help keep you at the forefront of your sector and I very much look forward to seeing Cambridge Display Technology becoming a world-beating company taking its place amongst the major UK success stories.
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