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New report makes proposals for improving UK innovation policies

25 November 2014

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Reported by James Hynard, CSaP Researcher

A renewed focus on innovative research and development spending by major UK departments would create new export-oriented industries and help rebalance the economy, says a new 65-page report entitled Creating Things for Markets that Don’t Exist.

"All parts of government are involved in innovation and the overview this report provides is an important contribution to the policy debate," said Robert Doubleday, Director of the Centre for Science and Policy.

The study is authored by David Connell, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Business Research, and is published by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; the Centre for Science and Policy at Cambridge University; and the Cambridge Network.

“Within the funding which is labelled as ‘R&D’ very little makes it to innovative companies to develop commercial products” under current government R&D spending practices, Lord Andrew Adonis, a former cabinet member, says in a foreword to the report.

In contrast, the U.S. “demand-led or ‘technology-pull’ process has spawned innovations which create all sorts of new markets and world-leading companies – and the UK should continue to learn from this approach.” That’s why, as the report’s title reflects, it’s important that R&D spending policy focus on creating new markets for things that currently don’t exist at all.

The report makes a series of costed proposals for improving the overall effectiveness of the UK’s innovation policies, including establishment within the MOD of a “mini DARPA” – a reference to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops new technologies for the U.S. Defense Department.

Click here to download the report.


Banner image from PopTech on Flickr

Dr David Connell

Centre for Business Research (CBR), University of Cambridge

Dr Rob Doubleday

Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge