The UK must make science and technology its new “national purpose”, becoming a global leader on funding levels and creating a new science and tech delivery unit to end Treasury “micromanagement” of R&D, according to a report from former Labour prime minister Sir Tony Blair and former Conservative leader Lord Hague of Richmond.
“Technological superpowers such as the United States and China are investing heavily in their futures, raising the possibility that everyone else will be trapped behind these two forces,” says their report, A New National Purpose: Innovation Can Power the Future of Britain, published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The UK “must find its niche in this new world” via “a radical new policy agenda, with science and technology at its core, that transcends the fray of 20th-century political ideology”, to ensure that the nation regards “science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource and innovation as our primary driver of growth”, write Sir Tony and Lord Hague.
They call for the creation of a “science and tech policy and delivery unit across Number 10 and [the] Cabinet Office”, able to be “independent from vested interests and status-quo forces, and able to devise, drive and unblock a reform agenda”.
