ACCORDING to the framework document produced by The Mersey Partnership (TMP), the knowledge economy contributes almost £8.4bn annually to the Liverpool city region.
This is based on Gross Value Added (GVA) figures for 2007 - GVA being the standard measure for economic output.
Breaking that down further, advanced manufacturing is worth just over £2bn, while life sciences contributes around £200m.
Advanced manufacturing goes beyond the straightforward final assembly of finished products and encompasses research, design, development and production through to logistics, after-sales service, maintenance and repair and end-of-life management.
Liverpool city region has more than 30,000 people employed in the sub-sector, which contains a number of high-profile companies.
These include the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) car factory, in Halewood, which is regarded as one of the world’s most advanced automotive facilities, the Pilkington glass manufacturing plant, in St Helens, and the National Biomanufacturing Centre, in Speke.
JLR, along with the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port, is only part of the automotive story.
Across the North West region, there are more than 500 automotive companies, many of them in the JLR and Vauxhall supply chain.
A workforce of 43,000 generates around £9bn a year.
The region also boasts a healthy cluster of chemical manufacturers, aerospace firms, particularly at Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, and more than 140 smaller firms within the energy and environmental sectors.
Birkenhead’s Cammell Laird shipyard is recognised as a centre of excellence for marine engineering and, while its main focus at the moment is ship building and repair, it has ambitious plans to branch out into the nuclear and wind power sectors.
The huge Airbus wing-making plant, in Deeside, is not strictly within the boundaries of the Liverpool city region.
However, the facility employs around 7,000 people, many of whom do live in Merseyside and its supply chain spreads across the North West.
In terms of research, the University of Liverpool undertakes aerospace research in the areas of flight simulation, handling qualities and control, aerodynamics, aero-elasticity, structural materials and mechanics.
The Research Centre for Electrical and Electronic Engineering, at Liverpool John Moores University, houses expertise in silicon electronics, concentrating on two specific sub-areas - nano-electronics and power electronics.
Life sciences encompasses the pharmaceutical, medical technology and medical biotechnology sub-sectors.
It employs more than 50,000 people across a range of businesses.
One of the key private sector employers is the Novartis vaccines plant, in Speke, which employs 700 people and supplies a large percentage of the annual flu vaccine requirements for the US.
It is in life sciences, perhaps more than the other sub-sectors, where the involvement of the public sector is key.
