The weekly BELS blog will tend towards being a snapshot of newsworthy developments in the UK life sciences arena, some commentary and occasional humour.
The premise behind BELS – British Expats in Life Sciences – is a fairly simple one. As a group of individuals our expat life scientists represent a tremendous value proposition in a whole host of ways.
For UK plc, our expats represent a rich resource that can be enabled with timely information to become ambassadors for UK life sciences, impacting strategic decisions in their spheres of influence, as appropriate, and ensuring that the global marketplace better understands our capabilities and the current opportunities here. Other countries have benefited considerably by utilising their diaspora, notably China, India, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand. Some, such as Israel and Ireland, have even taken the step of creating Ministers for Diaspora. The potential BELS universe is several thousand strong and part of an estimated 5.6 million Brits living outside the UK.
BELS will keep you connected to the UK life science scene and to a valuable professional network of highly accomplished fellow expats, including some 200 chief executives and several hundred C-suite executives as well as numerous academic leaders.
To help guide our activities, BELS Advisory Council Members will act as a sounding board for the BELS team and help shape our work with you. BELS will operate within a set of guiding principles to both protect members and ensure that our work effectively impacts on the UK life sciences. As such, the BELS database will not be shared outside the organisation. This is both to protect members from being inundated with approaches and to exert a level of quality control over interactions. Individual members will always control their involvement, and the BELS organisation will act as a screening mechanism to offer selective, appropriate opportunities for engagement.
We hope you’ll join us in making BELS sing far and wide! Spread the word to fellow Brits and please do get in touch with specific questions and requests. Working together, the BELS network and our collective connections will strengthen our United Kingdom of Life Sciences – both at home and abroad.
Best regards
Nigel Gaymond