Scottish
Parliament e-Brief
SECTION 2 - NEWS
Death
of Robin Cook MP
First Minister, Jack
McConnell, has paid tribute to former Cabinet Minister and MP for
Livingston, Robin Cook, who died at the weekend.
"Robin Cook was one of the outstanding Scottish and Labour politicians of the late 20th century. He was always willing to challenge orthodox thinking and he was a great champion of less popular causes," he said.
"He played a key role in making Labour electable again and he helped convince many that it was possible to be both pragmatic and radical. Those suffering from injustice or disadvantage have lost a powerful voice."
Robin Cook was born in Bellshill in February 1946 and went to school in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He read English Literature at Edinburgh University, and went on to work as a tutor, adult education organiser, and writer before entering Westminster as MP for Edinburgh Central in 1974. Since 1983 he has been MP for Livingston.
From 1980-83 he was Opposition Spokesman, Treasury and Economic Affairs 1980-83 and then Opposition Spokesman, European and Community Affairs for the next two years, and Opposition Spokesman, Health and Social Security between 1987 and 1989.
He was Shadow Health Secretary 1989-92, Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary 1992-94, and Shadow Foreign Secretary 1994-97.
After Labour's election victory in 1997 he became Foreign Secretary until 2001, then Leader of the Commons until he resigned from the Cabinet in 2003.
Increasing
business competitiveness
The University of
Strathclyde will receive almost £272,000 to expand the CompetitiveScotland.com
network.
Announcing the award today under the SEEKIT (Scottish Executive Expertise, Knowledge & Innovation Transfer) programme, Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Allan Wilson said:
"CompetitiveScotland.com has proven successful in linking universities with Scottish businesses so far, and this award will enhance its standing even further.
"The grant will help develop a programme to transfer knowledge and technology from universities to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which will improve their ability to innovate.
"Businesses will be able to access technology, engineering and management expertise, primarily within Strathclyde University.
"Newly developed technology will be more readily available and marketable, SMEs will have more opportunities to network and the resource will also allow companies to draw on others' experiences to solve problems.
"Knowledge sharing such as this will give some of our SMEs the opportunity to truly compete at both national and international level.
"Some information will be freely available over the Internet, while the technology transfer programme delivers resources to participating SMEs which will improve their competitiveness by enabling them to create better products and processes.
"I am confident that this innovative and collaborative project will improve the competitiveness of businesses around the country."
This is the 11th project to be awarded funding under the SEEKIT grant scheme. SEEKIT is designed to support projects that promote co-operation in research and development and knowledge transfer between the Scottish public sector science base and Scottish SMEs.
Grants will be awarded to eligible public sector organisations such as universities and research institutes. This scheme aims to help effect wealth creation by increasing the competitiveness of SMEs through their engagement with the Scottish science base. It was launched in December 2003.
There are two strands to this project: an electronic repository of material, or K-Portal, and a knowledge and technology transfer programme (TTP).
SECTION
3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS
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