Provided that the Partnerships continue to deliver the high quality of work that we are now seeing, I want to announce further calls in the future. Further rounds will be launched in the coming 3 years to bring the total network of Partnerships to around 20 by 2003. That is why the Government has doubled support for Foresight. I am pleased to see the much broader participation in the new round of Foresight. I hope that you will have been part of that process.
Government has a key role to play too in promoting knowledge transfer between science and industry.
Every 1 million we spend on TCS creates 70 new jobs, produces ongoing annual profits for firms of around 4 million and results in new training for over 500 company staff. The staff of the universities and research organisations involved also gain insights that feed back into their teaching and research. That is why we intend to double the DTI contribution to TCS over the next 4 years, bringing total Government funding to about 30 million per year, so that we can support around 1,000 TCS programmes at any one time. And that is not all. The 45 million University Challenge Fund awards announced in March allow 15 seed funds to be set up involving 26 universities and 9 other research establishments.