- New Innovation Strategy sets out plans to cement the UK’s
position as a world-leader in science, research and innovation
- Long-term plan to boost private sector investment across the
UK and create the right conditions for all businesses to turn
world-leading science into new products and services
- Business Secretary : ‘The countries that secure leadership in
transformational technologies will lead the world - it’s our
job to ensure the UK keeps pace with the global innovation
race.’
New plans to boost private sector investment to put the UK at the
front of the global innovation race have been set in a new
Innovation Strategy launched by Business Secretary today (Thursday 22 July).
Today’s Innovation Strategy is the Government’s long-term vision
to put innovation at the heart of building back better, as a key
pillar in our Plan for Growth. It aims to boost private sector
investment in R&D across the whole of the UK, and create the
right conditions for all businesses to innovate so they have the
confidence to do so.
The UK is committed to increasing annual public investment on
R&D to a record £22 billion, but the private sector also
plays a key role in boosting spending on R&D, which is an
essential part of our country’s future prosperity and key to
achieving key domestic priorities, from tackling climate change
and boosting productivity, to levelling up opportunities across
the UK and supporting businesses out of the pandemic.
The pandemic has shown us that major challenges can be resolved
by ambitious investment in science, technology, innovation and
entrepreneurship, and has shown the public what British
innovators can deliver when given ambitious support, freedom, and
risk tolerance.
The strategy takes lessons learned from the pandemic, including
from the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce – where the public and private
sectors successfully worked alongside each other – and applies
them find solutions to fundamental challenges facing the UK -
including the relative decline in business R&D investment,
skills gaps and the need for pro-enterprise regulatory
environment to spur innovation.
To achieve this aim, the Government will specify ‘innovation
missions’ to set clear direction, urgency and pace on the issues
confronting the UK that we want to tackle with the private sector
in the coming years. These will be determined by the new National
Science and Technology Council and supported by the Office for
Science and Technology Strategy.
The Government is also outlining seven strategic technologies to
prioritise and build on our existing R&D strengths, including
clean technologies, robotics, genomics and AI, where the UK has
globally competitive advantage and industrial strength.
The strategy outlines how the Government will focus its efforts
to support businesses and institutions at the cutting edge of
innovation, setting out plans in four areas:
-
Unleashing Business – fuelling businesses who
want to innovate by ensuring effective access to private and
public investment.
-
People – creating the most exciting place in
the world for talented innovators.
-
Institutions and Places – ensuring R&D
institutions serve the needs of businesses and promoting
innovation in places across the UK.
-
Missions and Technologies – stimulating
innovation in technology and missions that will provide the UK
with a strategic advantage and will be critical to tackling
some of our greatest challenges.
Business Secretary said:
“The UK can look back on a proud history of changing the world
through innovation. From the industrial revolution to the vaccine
development of the past year, the impact on our everyday lives is
undeniable.
“That spirit of discovery is still alive in this country today,
but we have not always turned our genius for innovation into jobs
and companies here in Britain.
“The countries that secure leadership in such transformational
technologies will lead the world, enjoying unrivalled growth,
security and prosperity for decades to come – and it’s our job to
ensure the UK keeps pace with the global innovation race.
“Through this long-term plan, we want to rekindle our country’s
flame of innovation and discovery, helping businesses to seize
the vast opportunities that innovation can bring.
“If we get this right, we can build the foundations for the new
industries of tomorrow, and ensure British firms are at the front
of the pack to turn world-leading science into new products and
services that are successful in international markets.”
Through the Innovation Strategy the Government will:
- increase annual public investment on R&D to a record £22
billion;
- ensure government procurement is proactive and supportive,
providing a route to market for innovative new products and
services.
- consult on how regulation can ensure that the UK is
well-placed to extract the best value from innovation;
- commission the Regulatory Horizons Council to consider how
best to support innovation through regulation, including looking
whether there are a set of high-level guiding principles for
regulation that may apply broadly to any sector of innovation;
- introduce new High Potential Individual and Scale-up visa
routes, and revitalise the Innovator route to attract and retain
high-skilled, globally mobile innovation talent;
- undertake an independent review to assess landscape of UK
organisations undertaking all forms of research, development and
innovation;
- reduce complexity for innovative companies by developing an
online finance and innovation hub between Innovate UK and the
British Business Bank within the next 12 months;
- expand IP education programme for researchers and launch
International IP Services to bolster innovative companies’ and
researchers’ ability to confidently collaborate, export and
invest overseas.
- publish of a new action plan on ‘Standards for the Fourth
Industrial Revolution’, promoting standards that enable
innovation to flourish;
- invest £200 million through the British Business Bank’s Life
Sciences Investment Programme to target the growth-stage funding
gap faced by UK life science companies;
- support 30,000 senior managers of small and medium sized
businesses through Help to Grow: Management to boost their
business’s performance, resilience, and long-term growth.
The Strategy identifies areas where the UK has globally
competitive R&D and industrial strength and that will
transform our economy in the future - Advanced materials and
Manufacturing; AI, Digital and Advanced Computing; Bioinformatics
and Genomics; Engineering Biology; Electronics, Photonics and
Quantum; Energy and Environment Technologies; Robotics and Smart
Machines.
Our partners in the innovation system will be critical to
delivering our ambitions, and the Business Secretary has asked
Innovate UK and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to
operationalise this Strategy in order to achieve our shared
objectives.
The Government will work with universities and other research
organisations, charities, Catapults, public sector research
establishments and research and innovation institutes who will
all play a key role in implementation of the Strategy.
As part of efforts to ensure innovative business across the UK
can capitalise on these strengths, five pioneering projects will
receive a share of £127 million through the Strength in Places
Fund, delivered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI):
- In the North of England, £22.6 million will help the Advanced
Machinery & Productivity Initiative to drive innovation for
the UK’s advanced machinery manufacturers to put them at the
cutting edge of emerging technologies such as robotics.
- In the Midlands, £18.3 million is being awarded to the
Midlands Industrial Ceramics Group to improve manufacturing
processes in advanced ceramics. The funding will help to make
ceramics manufacturing to become more energy-efficient, faster
and cheaper.
- Working in Scotland and Cumbria, £21.3 million of funding
will be awarded to the Digital Dairy Value-Chain project which
will create a more sustainable dairy industry by combining
digital communications and advanced manufacturing.
- In Wales, the media.cymru project will bring together UK
broadcasters, small local businesses and freelancers to research
and develop new products and services for global markets thanks
to £22.2 million of funding from the fund.
- And in Northern Ireland, £42.4 million will help the Smart
Nano NI project to speed up the development of new nano-scale
optical components to power our future digital devices.
In addition to the Strength in Places Fund, £25 million of
funding for the Connecting Capability Fund will help drive
further economic growth through university-business innovation,
and eight new Prosperity Partnerships will establish business-led
research projects harnessing the power of science and engineering
to develop transformational new technologies that benefit
companies, with £59 million of industry, university and
government investment.
ENDS
Notes to editors
A detailed strategy for levelling up through research and
innovation will be set out as part of the Government’s
forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper.
In addition, through the Innovation Strategy the Government will:
-
Devise training to upskill the next generation of
lenders, supporting them in their ability to assess risk when
lending to innovative businesses.
-
Government will engage closely with pension funds and
the investment industry to understand the scope for
industry-led initiatives that take advantage of innovation
investment opportunities.
-
Establish £10 million innovation seed fund to provide
early-stage patient capital for high-potential
businesses.
-
Reduce complexity for innovative companies by
developing an online finance and innovation hub between
Innovate UK and the British Business Bank within the next 12
months.
-
Provide a £50 million package for innovation
infrastructure projects.
-
Launch a consultation on the potential value of and
options for a national capability in ‘cyber-physical
infrastructure’.
-
Commission the Regulatory Horizons Council to consider
how best to support innovation through regulation, including
looking whether there are a set of high-level guiding
principles for regulation that may apply broadly to any sector
of innovation.
-
Extend the reach of the “Agile Nations” network to make
it easier for businesses to introduce and scale innovations
across international markets.
-
Consult on reforms to ensure that the competition
framework is effective for an innovative modern economy and on
setting up a new, pro-competition regime for digital
markets
-
Publish the National AI Strategy to support businesses
and the public sector to responsibly adopt AI.
-
Expand IP education programme for researchers and
launch International IP Services to bolster innovative
companies’ and researchers’ ability to confidently collaborate,
export and invest overseas.
-
Consult on the protection of inventions and creations
made by AI with minimal human input.
-
Develop innovation chapters in Free Trade
Agreements.
-
Ensure government procurement is proactive and
supportive, providing a route to market for innovative new
products and services.
-
Establish a UKRI-wide Commercialisation Funding
Framework to simplify support, minimise bureaucracy and embed
best practice so the best ideas can be commercialised.
-
Innovate UK will continue to strengthen its provision
of support for commercialisation capability.
-
Launch Help To Grow: Digital to support 100,000 small
businesses to adopt digital technologies that will save them
time and money, helping them recover from the
pandemic.
-
Expand Innovate UK EDGE, working alongside Growth Hubs
in England, and programmes delivered by Scottish Enterprise,
Invest Northern Ireland, and the Welsh Government to accelerate
growth in the UK’s most innovative businesses.
-
Allocate £8 million announced in February 2021 to
continue Made Smarter Adoption in the North West of England and
to begin scaling-up support in the West Midlands, North East of
England and Yorkshire & the Humber for the adoption of
advanced industrial digital technology amongst manufacturing
SMEs.
-
Innovate UK will include the adoption and diffusion of
cutting-edge innovation in its objectives.
-
Set up the Government Office for Technology Transfer to
support public sector organisations in identifying wider uses
for their innovations.
