WMG, at the University of Warwick, have been awarded £10 million to build a new Degree Apprenticeship Centre for the high value manufacturing sector.

The WMG Degree Apprenticeship Centre will focus on courses essential to the effective development of advanced engineering and manufacturing companies.

The Centre, which is due to open in 2019, has received £10 million from the Government’s Local Growth Fund through the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP).

The Centre will provide training programmes up to Level 7 (Master’s Degree level) with an initial capacity for 1,000 students on roll at any one time. The apprentices, who will be employed by companies, will undertake their academic studies at the WMG Degree Apprenticeship Centre, which will be on the University of Warwick campus.

Work will start this summer on building the Centre which will provide flexible teaching and lab space, and an environment for technology-enhanced learning as well as advice and support for apprentices and organisations.

The WMG Degree Apprenticeship Centre will be the first part of a future Degree Apprenticeship complex on the Warwick campus training students in a range of Degree Apprenticeships.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman of WMG, said: “Building on nearly four decades track record of developing, and delivering, pioneering education programmes, our new Degree Apprenticeship Centre will provide a variety of routes to achieve degree level apprenticeships. Young people are our future and we need to provide them with as many opportunities to support our manufacturing base. The Centre will give the opportunity for school leavers and apprentices, looking to progress from Level 4 and 5 qualifications to degree level.”

Jonathan Browning, chair of the CWLEP, said the WMG Degree Apprenticeship Centre will create a dedicated space designed to support a new range of degrees.

He said: “The WMG Degree Apprenticeship Centre represents a significant investment in the delivery of higher-level skills to businesses and will focus on the High Value Manufacturing sector in Coventry and Warwickshire as well as meeting the needs of industry and the Government’s skills and industrial strategies.

“Equipping businesses with the skilled workforces they need for the future is vital to our economy and this new centre will support businesses particularly in the manufacturing sector throughout Coventry and Warwickshire.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS

WMG, University of Warwick

WMG is a world leading research and education group and an academic department of the University of Warwick, established by Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 in order to reinvigorate UK manufacturing through the application of cutting edge research and effective knowledge transfer.

WMG has pioneered an international model for working with industry, commerce and public sectors and holds a unique position between academia and industry. The Group’s strength is to provide companies with the opportunity to gain a competitive edge by understanding a company’s strategy and working in partnership with them to create, through multidisciplinary research, ground-breaking products, processes and services.

Every year WMG provides education and training to schoolchildren through to senior executives. There is a growing part-time undergraduate programme for apprentices, as well as full-time undergraduates. The postgraduate programmes have over 2,000 students, in the UK and through centres in China, India, Thailand, South Africa and Malaysia.

Local Growth Fund

Local Enterprise Partnerships are playing a vital role in driving forward economic growth across the country, helping to build a country that works for everyone.

That’s why by 2021 Government will have invested over £12bn through the Local Growth Fund, allowing LEPs to use their local knowledge to get all areas of the country firing on all cylinders.

Analysis has shown that every £1 of Local Growth Fund invested could generate £4.81 in benefits.

Further information

If you would like some further facts about the Fund, or the wider regeneration work going on across the country, please contact DCLG press office by emailing NewsDesk@communities.gsi.gov.uk in the first instance to request any additional information you might need.

Some additional key facts:

• There are 38 LEPs covering the whole of England
• The government has awarded £9.1bn in three rounds of Growth Deals to local areas to drive economic growth.
• LEPs are investing in a wide range of projects informed by detailed analysis of the most pressing economic needs in each of their areas, including transport, skills, business support, broadband, innovation and flood defences.