quickly fall into the 'SME' bracket (and the 'small' or 'micro' classification at that i.e. <25 or <5 employees respectively): some 90% of UK-based motorsport companies are SMEs. Traditionally, SMEs (regardless of industrial classification) are notorious for lack of engagement with further or higher education, either for research or contract testing purposes, or for provision of more fundamental Skills, Education and Training. Whether this situation prevails because of distrust of an institutional capability to deliver, fundamental disinterest in engaging, or the fact that colleges and universities are not very high on a company's radar for the purposes detailed previously, is anybody's guess. We've detailed this only because it is against this historical (and somewhat pessimistic and unsupportive) background that the Motorsport Knowledge Exchange at Oxford Brookes University chose to develop a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme specifically for the motorsport community.

A time for reflection (but don't get dazzled)
Oxford Brookes University's Motorsport Knowledge Exchange team considered the problems detailed in the previous section, then coupled their responses to the findings contained within the Report of the DTI Motorport Competitiveness Panel, most specifically those derived from the input of the 'Technology and Innovation', and 'Skills, Education and Training' Working Groups.
As the Technology and Innovation Working Group noted, '[motorsport] courses still lack some elements required by industry: complementary skills (decision-making, visualisation, project management), plus entrepreneurship, an understanding of the business context, and interpersonal and communications skills'. …To supplement existing standard educational qualifications is perceived as a better way of proceeding rather than [providing] specialist long-term courses on motorsport, which tend to duplicate parts of existing courses… the group recommends that a series of supplementary post-graduate courses be funded to accommodate the needs of individuals wanting to become involved in motorsport… There is a real need for short, effective courses delivered flexibly (i.e. at or close to the workplace, at times to suit the company and at short notice) covering both specific technical skills but also the complementary skills mentioned above'.

By developing a policy that could develop a proportion of those graduates into motorsport entrepreneurs the cluster will benefit to a greater extent than supplying more and more technically-competent polarised individuals'. This sentiment was echoed in the report of the Skills, Education and Training Working Group of the Panel, which determined that 'surveys found a need for… short, effective courses delivered flexibly'.2 The argument for some kind of course innovation is pithily