We have been going on about the huge potential for our existing innovation networks through universities increasingly realising the commercial potential of their research activity and RDA investment in innovation centres. But we need to learn how best to further build and consolidate this landscape. We have asked the technology entrepreneur, Hermann Hauser, to lead a review working closely with the Technology Strategy Board and BIS, to see how the UK could learn from other innovation networks, such as the Fraunhofer institutes in Germany and the Delft Centre in the Netherlands.
The UK currently has a strategic gap in its approach to investing in Technology and Innovation Centres which can play a key role in supporting the development of new technologies in areas where the following conditions prevail:
- the UK has truly world-leading research and business capability and capacity to make use of increased investment;
- the potential global markets are predicted to be worth billions of pounds per annum;
- the UK has the ability to capture a significant volume of high value activity; and
- Technology and Innovation Centres can enable the UK to attract and anchor the knowledge intensive activities of globally mobile companies.
In a resource constrained environment, difficult choices must be made to ensure sufficient support is provided to a small number of elite national Technology and Innovation Centres in technology priority areas. Like many highly successful Centres abroad, the UK can use this prioritisation to capitalise on national strengths.
The answer might have been found!
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced Government support for the development of a network of technology and innovation centres that will help deliver the industries and jobs of the future.
“Too often in this country we have been brilliant at research and let others walk away with the commercial benefits of development. If we are to develop new industrial capabilities in Britain, we have to get more D out of our R&D.
“Centres can play a vital role in bridging the gap between research and the market, strengthening our national capabilities in innovation.
“I am now determined that the UK builds a capability for the long term, through a more strategic and sustained approach to investing in these centres. Hauser is right that these centres need long term, predictable funding and I am committed to making that happen. I want to understand the UK's strengths, weaknesses and where there are gaps we need to invest in.”
The announcement came as he accepted the recommendations of a report by technology entrepreneur Hermann Hauser, commissioned to conduct a review into how the UK could learn from other countries’ innovation networks.
The elite group of centres will help commercialise the output of the UK’s world leading research and will drive economic growth in potential high growth sectors that will emerge from commercialising technologies such as stem cells and regenerative medicine; future internet technologies; plastic electronics; software and technologies addressing renewable energy and climate change; satellite communications; fuel cells; advanced manufacturing; and composite materials. Commercialising these technologies could enable the UK to capture a significant proportion of global markets potentially worth billions of pounds.
Welcoming the report, Lord Mandelson, said it recognised the UK was strong in many technology areas and the centres to be developed would help exploit that commercially. They would take new discoveries from the point where university researchers recognise the potential for commercialisation and help develop the concepts to a stage where the private sector would be able to commercialise it.
No comments:
Post a Comment