The Government has stated a strong commitment to the UK taking a leading role in international research and innovation, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology created by the Prime Minister in February 2023 places a welcome emphasis on science, bringing it back into the heart of a government department. Earlier in 2023, George Freeman – the minister who retains the science brief and who provides some valuable continuity to the leadership in this area – declared his ambition to make Britain a ‘science superpower and innovation nation’.
This ambition will not be achieved without the essential contribution that our universities make to R&D and innovation. A report by London Economics suggests that as much as half of the total economic contribution of a university can be attributed to the impact of research and knowledge exchange. Of course, as with much of what we do in the higher education sector, universities do not deliver this in isolation, but rather through extensive, powerful and mature relationships with a range of industrial and other partners across the world.
However, to compete with the US and China – whose investments in this area total £580 billion – we must work smarter to make the UK Government’s £20 billion investment in R&D count. George Freeman rightly recognises that we risk remaining a ‘small science powerhouse rather than a global science superpower’ if we do not attract greater industrial investment in research and development. He believes the UK should develop more research ‘clusters’: places in which sectors coalesce to benefit from a concentration of knowledge and skills, and so attract private investment, including from international partners. Silicon Valley in Northern California, is the archetypal cluster although there are many others around the world.
