The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) has awarded £250,000 in Regional Skills Hub funding to a new robotics training facility in West Cumbria.
The Cumbria Robotics Operations Skills Centre (CROSS), which will officially open later this year, has been developed collaboratively to build the robotics-skilled workforce needed to deliver the UK’s nuclear and clean energy ambitions.
Plans for the centre of excellence were first announced in April, with the collaborative venture involving the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), National College for Nuclear and Clean Energy (NCfN&CE), the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (RAICo), Sellafield Ltd and its supply chain, and Lakes College.
The project has already secured £1m in funding from UKAEA through the FOSTER programme, including providing state-of-the-art equipment to equip the CROSS facility.
The extra funding from the ECITB, which comes from the industry-led skills body’s investment in Regional Skills Hubs, will support the delivery of the hub, such as developing the curriculum, short bite-sized courses and teaching resources and the expansion of technical and sector-relevant content beyond the centre’s initial focus on the nuclear sector.
ECITB Chief Executive Andrew Hockey said: “The ECITB is delighted to support this innovative project in Cumbria from our Regional Skills Hub funding, which targets capacity-building projects like this in the UK’s industrial heartlands.
“Industry intelligence shows there is currently a lack of industry-applicable robotics training available for careers in the engineering construction industry (ECI).
“A key pillar of the ECITB’s Leading Industry Learning strategy under the Transform pillar is to drive technology adoption through training to allow industry to harness new technologies, including robotics.
“This project and the new, cutting-edge CROSS facility help meet this objective by delivering much-needed robotics training to benefit Sellafield nuclear site and other ECI sectors in the future.
“Our investment and collaboration with project partners positions the ECITB at the heart of emerging ECI robotics modularised training development and roll-out.”
Regional Skills Hubs funding
The ECITB’s Regional Skills Hubs funding initiative has committed to invest over £3 million to boost training provider capacity and grow new entrant numbers in industrial cluster hot spots and other major ECI centres of activity at the heart of the UK’s decarbonisation agenda.
Grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 are awarded to eligible projects that meet set criteria, such as the need to match ECITB grant funding from industry partners.
To date, the ECITB had committed £1.6m in funding, which has had £14.4m match funding from industry partners for projects across North East and Central Scotland, Teesside and Humberside.
This latest funding commitment for Cumbria contributes towards the delivery of robotics training where there is currently no existing facility. The centre aims to deliver training to 650 learners by 2030.
Lakes College is the lead ECITB-approved training provider for the project. It is working in collaboration with NCfN&CE, which is leading on the design and development of the CROSS curriculum, as well as housing the new facility in its northern hub based at the college.
CROSS will initially support apprenticeship delivery, including a significant first intake from Sellafield Ltd, while also offering modular training routes that enable individuals to develop targeted skills in response to industry demand.
Lakes College is also working with the new emerging North-West Clean Energy Technical Excellence College (CE-TEC). This investment marks an early step in ECITB’s aim to proactively support the CE-TEC mission to equip the engineering construction workforce with the skills of the future across the GB clean energy clusters.
At the launch of CROSS in April this year, Kirsty Hewitson, Director of RAICo, said: “CROSS represents an important step in how we build the robotics-skilled workforce needed for the UK’s nuclear and clean energy ambitions.
“Alongside advancing robotics and innovation, we must ensure that people have the skills to develop and deploy these technologies and innovations in real-world environments.
“By working in collaboration, we are bringing together industry insight and education expertise to create something both relevant and impactful. CROSS will help embed robotics capability across the workforce, support regional job creation in Cumbria and create new pathways into high-value careers.”
Find out more about the ECITB’s Regional Skills Hub Funding
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