UK life sciences sector to grab a slice of £200m investment fund

The UK’s life sciences sector has been given a boost on news that it will be dished up a slice of a £200 million cash pie taken from the UK Innovation Investment Fund (UKIIF).

The government announced this week that the European Investment Fund has been picked to manage the £200-million UK Future Technologies Fund (from which £100 million was raised by the EIF itself) – which will also benefit digital and advanced manufacturing businesses.

The first investments will be made in UK venture funds, with cash injections destined for technology-based businesses “where there are significant growth opportunities, driving the UK economy forward and creating highly skilled jobs”, the government said.

The UKIIF, which was launched in June last year by Prime Minister Gordon Brown under the government’s strategy for Building Britain’s Future - designed to build “a stronger, fairer and more prosperous country” – operates on a fund of funds structure, which means that monies will not be invested directly in companies but instead a small number of specialist, private sector technology funds which have the expertise to invest directly in technology businesses.

The idea is that by boosting the stream of venture capital available to these funds the UKIIF will help to propel investment in high growth businesses, including start-ups and spin-outs and those that have yet to book any profits or sales and are finding it difficult to raise cash in the current difficult economic climate.

And it seems the idea is starting to pay off. “Despite a tough market, the UKIIF goes from strength to strength,” said Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson. “Private funds have matched the government's investment and money can now flow into promising technology companies [and] this is just the boost these companies need as the economy returns to growth,” he remarked.

The BioIndustries Association has also welcomed the news. “The closing of the fund is a significant step towards delivering much needed funding to life sciences companies in the UK and it is important that the fund managers act quickly,” said chairman Clive Dix. “We now hope that a significant proportion of the fund will be used to help make the UK’s life sciences companies the most successful in the world”.

NEWS BY:http://www.pharmatimes.com

One in 10' UK graduates unemployed

Unemployment rate for UK college leavers by subject
Lowest	Highest
Source HESA: Percentage of full-time first degree graduates (2008-9) unemployed after six months
Medicine 0%	Computer science 17%
Education 5%	Communications 14%
Law 6%	Architecture 13% 13%
Biological science 9%	Engineering 13%
Languages 9%	Creative arts 13%
Maths 10%	Business studies 11%

Universities Minister David Willetts said the overall figures showed that employers were continuing to recruit graduates in large numbers, "even though these are students who graduated at the height of the recession".

The National Union of Students (NUS) said it was "a particularly tough time for graduates looking to get themselves on the career ladder".

"University leavers will be the engines of economic recovery in the UK and the government must ensure that it invests in the creation of suitable jobs and secures access to employment opportunities to best utilise the vast pool of skills and knowledge emerging from our colleges and universities," said NUS president Aaron Porter.

The government wants colleges to give greater information about students' chances of finding work after graduation so they make better choices before they embark on a college courses. 

"I have asked universities to provide employability statements to help people make the right choice about which course to take," Mr Willetts said.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

UK university applications in 'steepest fall for 30 years'

The proportion of UK students applying to start degrees in the autumn will drop by 10% this year, a university leader has predicted – the steepest fall for 30 years.

Professor David Green, vice-chancellor of the University of Worcester, based his forecast on more than 25 years' involvement in university applications, nine of them as the head of an institution.

His prediction comes ahead of the publication on Monday morning of figures that will show how many students have applied to start university this autumn – when fees rise to up to £9,000 a year.

The figures, published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas), will give the number of applications institutions received by 15 January – the official deadline.

The final application figures will be announced in the autumn because some students apply for courses between now and the end of June, outside the official route.

Professor Green predicts that, by this summer, there will be an estimated 70,000 fewer applications from UK-born students than there were last summer – a 10% drop. He said this would be the biggest fall in the proportion of UK students since the 1970s.

However, he said about 140,000 students would still be rejected by universities this summer because institutions were restricted by the number of places they could offer. Last year, almost 210,000 – one in three applicants – failed to get a place.

Professor Green said the reasons for the expected drop in applications were multifold and include the fact that the maximum fee has almost trebled to £9,000.

He said teenagers may have been deterred from applying by mistakenly thinking they may have to pay for their fees when they register at university. Students pay their fees with a student loan, which they start repaying when they graduate and earn more than £21,000.

Some young people now wrongly thought their employment prospects would be enhanced by skipping university and starting paid work on leaving school, Green said.

"There has been much talking up of apprenticeships and learning a trade when opportunities for both of these are limited," he said. "In the short term, some young people who would have gone to university will end up on benefits, in the long term, we will have a workforce that is less skilled."

Earlier this month, the latest statistics from Ucas showed UK applications for this autumn had slumped by almost 8%.

Some 283,680 people had applied from within the UK, compared with 306,908 at the same point last year.

The fall has been partly blamed on the fee hike, but is also thought to be due to a glut of applications in 2010 in anticipation of the fees rise. Demographic factors could also be behind the slump. The number of 18-year-olds in the UK is projected to decline over the rest of the decade by 11%.

The figures on Monday will show whether 18-year-olds from low-income families have been particularly deterred. Ucas has classified parts of the UK into five groups according to their level of participation in higher education.

NEWS BY:http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/30/uk-univeristy-applications-fall?newsfeed=true