How the Pontio Centre and M-SParc complement each other in the Social and Economic Development of Northwest Wales

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Jane Lambert

On 29 Nov 2019, I visited the Menai Science Park (M-SParc) to talk \about IP searches and understanding patent specifications.  In addition to our usual audience of local artists, business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, makers and their professional advisers, we welcomed some graduate and undergraduate students from Bangor Law School. The audience was so large that we had to move the talk from the boardroom to the training room.  You will find a copy of my presentation at IP Database Searches and Understanding Specifications 30 Nov 2020.

After my talk, I held my usual clinic for local businesses and then drove across the Britannia Bridge to the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre to watch Ballet Cymru's triple bill which I reviewed in  Ballet Cymru - Even Better than Last Year  6 Dec 2019 Terpsichore.   Before the show, I watched a performance by local schoolchildren in the foyer of the Pontio Centre. I wrote:

"Members of the company had introduced ballet to the students of a local primary school who presented an impressive curtain-raiser in the theatre's foyer. Alex Hallas, who tutored the children, told me that many including several boys had been inspired to take up ballet seriously. Throughout my life, I have found ballet to be an excellent mental as well as physical exercise. Probably I could not do my job well without it."

Yesterday, Ballet Cymru released a film of their work with those children which I have embedded above.

Like M-SParc, the Pontio Centre is an initiative of Bangor University and they complement each other.  While the science park provides facilities for new knowledge-based businesses the Pontio is a venue for the performing arts.  Both are essential for the economic and social regeneration of Northwest Wales.  The new businesses in or clustering around M-SParc already provide employment for the region's graduates and young professionals.  The arts will nourish their minds and spirits.

As I noted in IP and Dance  30 May 2019, intellectual property is important to the performing arts as it is is to science and technology.  While patents, trade secrecy, unregistered design right and copyright protect investment in research and development, copyright protects the work of artists, choreographers, composers, costume and set designers, dramatists, dramaturges and librettists and rights in performances the work of actors, ballerinas, musicians and singers.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or any of the topics mentioned it should call my clerk Stephen on 07986 948267 or send me a message through my contact page. I shall gladly respond by phone, VoIP or email.