This morning The Duke of York opened the Bayer Plc Headquarters for UK and Ireland in Reading. His Royal Highness had an opportunity to talk with the UK leadership team about the scope of Bayer’s work and the advances being made in the field of Life Sciences. The Duke was then taken on a tour meeting teams working in Pharmaceuticals, Animal Health, Crop Science and Consumer Health. His Royal Highness finished the tour at the Baylab, where he met students from a local primary school being taught practical chemistry experiments. Before unveiling the plaque open to officially open the building The Duke commented on how the passion, clarity of thought and attention to detail of the scientists at Bayer was alleviating suffering all over the world.
His Royal Highness left Reading for the Science and Technology Facilities Council Harwell Campus’s Space Cluster. The Duke is Patron of the campus and inaugurated the Zephyr Building that will soon house Oxford Space Systems. His Royal Highness heard from five businesses how Harwell’s support had allowed them to grow, develop new ideas and establish themselves and Oxford as competitive players in the global space industry. During the visit The Duke deployed the OSS antenna that will soon be equipped on satellite constellations surrounding the world.
The Duke of York this afternoon visited Williams Advanced Engineering and heard about the wide variety of engineering challenges being solved at the Oxfordshire headquarters. His Royal Highness met engineers working on Formula E, Armoured Fighting Vehicles, electric, boats, supermarket refrigeration and infant trauma care. On departure The Duke of York attended the presentation of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation.
His Royal Highness finished the day at the Peking University HSBC Business School’s UK Campus in Boar’s Hill, Oxfordshire. The Campus is the first Chinese University to open in the UK and is breaking ground in preparing British undergraduates and post graduates for study and work in China. Peking University was the first University in China to accept female students in 1920. The Duke opened the [email protected] Pathway. The 500m contemplative walk around a lake is a symbol of Peking University and [email protected] cooperation in the furthering of Sino-British economic and entrepreneurial integration.
