BPF’s Philip Law discusses efforts to promote collaboration between the plastics industry and universities and foster innovation in sustainable plastics solutions.
One of the key dates in the BPF’s Annual General meeting is always in May. We were delighted to unanimously re-elect Nigel Flowers of Sumitomo Demag Plastics Machinery as president for a second year of office. Nigel has done so much to establish ‘productivity’ as a key BPF theme, particularly important in the wake of Brexit and the increasingly harsher world trading climate. We look forward to another year of progress under Nigel’s leadership.
We have also elected as vice-president, Martin Hitchin, the CEO of Rehau Limited in the UK, who brings a wide-ranging experience in windows, pipes and automotive markets. He is a fluent German speaker and also spent 12 months in China in his formative years. Additionally, he has experience with the European associations for plastics, particularly those relating to PVC.
BPF continues to thrive and has now won 590 member firms. We also have 17 universities in membership. We will be formally launching the ‘BPF University Network’ in the next couple of months and will be publishing a detailed ‘Capability Guide’ providing the specialist areas within these universities as well as a detailed guide to the testing equipment they have in-house. The network will enable us to better connect industry with academia to drive both innovation as well as improve the skills gap that we continue to see in the sector.
The key is to interface them with companies in the industry. On June 4th, we organised our first ever ‘Meetings Day’ which saw over 140 members from 10 different business groups in the Federation converge on a Midlands hotel for a day of Group meetings, networking and shared sessions. The event also featured tabletops from a number of these universities, enabling them to engage directly with the industry. We are already planning an online ‘Meet the University’ day for November to enable more members to continue the dialogue, discuss the latest projects the universities are doing and discuss future collaboration.
Building on our desire to better connect industry with academia, BPF is partnering with Innovate UK Business Connect to run GRIPS 2024 (Global Research and Innovation in Plastics Sustainability), which we are staging at Sheffield University on 19 September 2024, hosted by the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.
The event will feature over 60 expert speakers from across industry and academia who will address the very latest developments in innovation and sustainability. The event is in its fourth year, having been run online twice (attracting up to 3,000 delegates each time) and once as part of Plastics Sustainability Live. I know many of our members attended these events and were enthused about the quality of speakers. GRIPS 2024 is expected to attract over 500 people and we already have over 200 people booked, so I would strongly encourage people booking online quickly if they wish to attend. To register, go to: iuk.ktn-uk.org/events/grips-2024.
Crucially, due to a generous gift from Jane Williams, in memory of her husband David Williams, past president of the BPF and past Master of The Worshipful Company of Horners, the Horners are sponsoring the GRIPS 2024 conference. This has meant the event is completely free which we really hope will maximise attendance and drive further conversations and collaboration across the industry. We are still looking for extra sponsors, so if you are interested please contact the BPF's Events team.