Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Andy Reed (Labour). It was answered on Thursday, 27 March 2008 on behalf of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Research and Development

Question: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. As he is aware, Loughborough university developed simply because of its enormous strength in linking academic strength with business, which has gone from strength to strength ever since Schofield set up the university all those decades ago. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the work of the Energy Technologies Institute, which has demonstrated exactly how we can get business and academic researchers to work together, not just in a business sense, but to make an environmental impact? Will he join me in visiting the companies that are involved, including at the Loughborough Innovation Centre and at Intelligent Energy, which has done an enormous amount to make progress on fuel cell technology and has secured further private sector funding in the past few weeks? Will he then commit the Government to promoting that technology, so that we can get it to market, which is the crucial part, on which I should like the Government do a little more?

Answer: I very much welcome the Energy Technologies Institute, which is located at Loughborough university, but will operate on a distributed model. One reason why the independent panel decided in favour of the consortium involving Loughborough university being the home for the hub was the world-class research being conducted there. I had the opportunity to visit the engineering department at Loughborough university last year, but I would certainly be happy to go back and see some of the excellent work to which my hon. Friend refers.

Secondary information