UK companies have won £47 Million in contracts from CERN over the past few years – a benefit to the UK economy that is only possible due to STFC’s membership of CERN. Arcade is a Cambridgeshire based family business which STFC first introduced to CERN at a Meet the Buyer event in 2011 run to match UK industry with opportunities at science facilities. CERN’s Head of the Heating and Ventilation group wanted to meet with UK companies ahead of the shutdown when major upgrades of the systems would take place.
As a result of this introduction, Arcade were invited to tender for several projects. They have been steadily winning contracts ever since. Working with CERN has enabled Arcade to increase their workforce and now that their engineers are trained to work in radiation environments, they have the skills to work in a range of scientific environments.
Mike West, Managing Director at Arcade UK Limited, said: “The projects that we have contributed to at CERN over the last year have had a significant impact on our business – our work there has led to an expansion in our engineering team and we have seen a positive increase in this year’s turnover.”
So far the company has completed the heating and ventilation systems for part of the CMS experiment (one of two experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson last year) and they are due to start work on a variety of projects across the CERN site soon, such as improvements to the cooling systems for a server room and the installation of redundant pumps and ventilation for parts of the LHC.
Julie Bellingham, Head of Business Opportunities for International Facilities at STFC said: “When people imagine CERN they often think of complex scientific equipment but their requirements are not always for scientific needs. CERN requires everything from civil engineering to patent lawyers and as we’ve seen with Arcade, heating and ventilation. We’re really pleased that they have gone on to win these contracts and develop such a good working relationship. At today’s exchange rates, UK companies have won over £47M at CERN over the last three years and there continues to be huge opportunities. The impact of winning contracts is often even greater as it boosts reputations and enables companies to win business elsewhere."
Arcade is in the process of responding to tenders at other international facilities to build on their experience at CERN. Mike West from Arcade continues:“We are pleased to have been able to establish such a strong working relationship with CERN and are grateful to the Science and Technology Facilities Council for making the initial introductions which enabled us to demonstrate our expertise in this industry sector.”
STFC manages the UK subscription to CERN. UK membership of CERN gives our physicists and engineers access to the experiments and allows UK industry to bid for contracts, UK nationals to compete for jobs and research positions at CERN, and UK schools and teachers to visit.
Image: Sam Williams, Projects Director at Arcade UK Limited, pictured at the Alice experiment at CERN
(Credit: Arcade)
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