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University links with industry and improved vocational skills are the two keys to improved economic performance, science minister Lord Sainsbury told a conference this week, writes Alan Thomson.

Lord Sainsbury, who spoke at a Foresight conference in London on skills and training, said that while the United Kingdom's science and engineering research base was sound, economic innovation and development of that research was less healthy.

Later, lifelong learning minister Malcolm Wicks told delegates that the traditional boundary between academic and vocational education was outmoded and that there was a need for an interface between the two. Opinion, page 18