EastWind making an impact on critical offshore challenges

The cluster believes that collective efforts have the potential to unlock opportunities and drive progress, ensuring the sustainable development of the region’s offshore wind sector.

As part of its commitment to its network, and to deliver on key aims under its three output pillars – industry, community and collaboration – the cluster held a round-table event at Saxon Air in Norwich as part of UK Wind Week Celebrations in July, which brought together industry experts, stakeholders and thought leaders to explore some of the key issues facing the industry.

The sessions focused on three key themes – skills, supply chain and innovation – and included participants from developers to SMEs, ensuring views from across the supply chain were captured.

Each round table concentrated on two points of discussion, including:

• How can we collaborate better for the benefit of developing skills in the sector?
• What are we doing well and what could we do better to close skills gaps?
• How do we get/nurture a more localised supply chain?
• How can we encourage businesses to use their transferable skills to work in the offshore wind industry?
• What are the opportunities for innovation in the region?
• What are the perceived barriers to innovation?

The round tables were led by subject experts from across supply chain, education and research institutes.

Insights from the sessions included:

• Utilising local businesses will bring social and economic value and will instil confidence in pipeline opportunities to bring on more apprentices and invest in local talent.
• The need for a link between innovators and vendors, as quite often they need to pitch and sell to operators.
• In terms of supply chain, it’s not about ‘transferable’ skills, it’s about having the right skills for a job – if someone can weld, they can weld in any sector.
• Working collaboratively with developers takes time – how do new innovators get certified and on to approved supplier lists?
• The potential for increasing value for money by focusing on local talent/local business, rather than simply seeking the lowest cost.
• For skills, it’s not just about recruitment, but also about retention and widening the net.
• Finding the right people to understand innovation challenges and create momentum for new solutions remains a challenge.
• More could be done to highlight capabilities in energy, particularly the capabilities of local universities.
• Consideration should be given to how industry can support entry level students and broadening our outlook as recruiters, retainers and educators.
• How do we facilitate comfortable collaboration between businesses to keep the work locally based?

“The enthusiasm and commitment from everyone involved in the sessions was inspiring,” said Lexi Brackpool, EastWind project manager. “There was a real buzz of lively debate and discussion in the room and the feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive.

Lexi Brackpool, EastWind project manager (Image: EastWind) “The next steps for the cluster are to establish the round tables as working groups, which will enable us to push forward with the outputs that came from the in-depth and invaluable discussions of the round-table participants.

“We will also use the recommendations and insights from the discussions to compile a comprehensive report, which will be used as a foundation for ongoing initiatives aimed at addressing critical challenges.

“There is a lot of work for the cluster to do as a result of the initial outcomes from the sessions – we asked for actionable outcomes and the participants didn’t disappoint!

“We’re excited to continue working in partnership with our network and external stakeholders including education, technology and research organisations to drive these actions forward, demonstrate our strength as a cluster and showcase the impact we can make together.

“To move forward with a collaborative approach is vital, and we recognise the importance of the value of a cross-section of industry to do so.”

You can sign up to the EastWind network at ewoc.co.uk and follow EastWind on social media for information on upcoming events, funding and opportunities to get involved.