We live, work and compete in an innovation economy and over the next five years our future prosperity will increasingly depend on our ability to innovate – continuously. Products and services which fail to evolve will inevitably be overtaken by those that do and some will be completely swept aside in the wake of revolutionary alternatives.
Innovate UK had a unique perspective right across our economy and a successful track record in supporting business-led innovation – returning on average £6 for every £1 invested. So where do the opportunities for leading edge innovation come from and how can we help the UK to stay at the forefront of the global markets of the future.
A good friend of mine, Eddie O’Beng, gave me a very simple way of looking at innovation opportuities which I find incredibly useful as it encourages you to approach the future from a rich mixture of inspirational sources. It is based on a 2x2 grid contrasting technology with society and push with pull.
Lets start by considering technology push, an area where our world-class research base gives the UK a structural advantage over many other countries.Game changing technologies in cell therapies, 2D materials and quantum technologies create opportunities for dramatic change but at the same time they will often require completely new business models and value chains. Innovate UK therefore works closely with the Research Councils to support business led innovation in this quadrant, investing for example in IKC (Innovation and Knowledge Centres) and Catalyst funding competitions. The IKC centres create early stage critical mass in areas of disruptive technology so that research strengths can be used to nucleate industries around them. The Cambridge Centre for Smart infrastructure is an excellent example of this. Our increasingly urbanised world, coupled with new forms of sensors and an ability to analyse huge amounts of data means that we can now develop buildings and infrastructure which are increasingly ‘self aware’- transforming how they are built and maintained. Innovate UK and the research councils jointly fund the Catalyst programmes in order to enable businesses and researchers to take their ground breaking concepts through to commercialisation. We currently run Catalyst programmes in energy, agritech, industrial biotech and biomedical applications. Our goal in these, as in much of what we do, is to bring opportunities to the point where the private sector has the confidence to invest and we are very pleased that the biomedical catalyst has been able to attract over £1billion of follow on private sector investment for the companies it has supported. Quite often a disruptive technology will appear first in one application but then go on to have profound impacts on many more. Block chains are a great example. Originally used as the distributed ledger technology which underpinned the Bitcoin crypto currency, it is now finding uses in other applications which are also dependent on verification - such as in supply chains - by companies such as Project Provenance Ltd whose work is supported by Innovate UK.
When we consider technology pull we are often looking at the evolution of an existing industry in order to address the challenges of the future. The really important transitions will often impact an entire industry and it is then down to the industry sector as a whole to work together to move the industry forward. In the UK this is achieved through the leadership councils, which bring the key players in the sector together with government and organisations such as Innovate UK and research councils in order to focus everyone on the challenges ahead. There are leadership councils covering many of the sectors of the UK economy including aerospace, agritech and automotive. A good example of that common focus is the current work on the lightweighting of vehicles in the automotive sector in order to continue the improvement in vehicle performance and emissions. Firms like Gordon Murray Design, supported in the past by Innovate UK are getting ahead of the game, with completely new manufacturing processes based on composites. Whilst the Advanced Propulsion Centre, set up in 2013 from a commitment between the government and automotive industry through the Automotive Council acts as a focal point in the UK for excellence in low carbon powertrain development and production.
When we consider societal pull, there can be some very big opportunities indeed, as the overall direction of our society can be a useful proxy in understanding the markets of the future. Programmes started five years ago on low carbon vehicles and low impact buildings have now become mainstream in their sectors. Programmes starting today in areas such as precision medicine, transport systems and energy systems will transform the fundamental services all of us rely on every day. Where there is a need to bring together the best of the UK's businesses, scientists and engineers to work side by side on late-stage research and development using the very latest equipment, Innovate UK creates a Catapult centre. These physical centres then become the focal point for transforming high potential innovation into the new products and services, which will generate UK economic growth. There are now ten Catapults centres and some of the most recent ones include the three society pull topics highlighted above. So if you are seeking expertise and resources to support your work in innovation do look to see if there is a Catapult centre, which can help you in your work.
Last but certainly not least is societal push. For me, the opportunity in this quadrant is summed up by the phrase “redefining needs and desires”. If you can do that, the commercial opportunity can be enormous which has of course, been very powerfully demonstrated by Apple. The UK has world leading creative industries such as Industrial Light & Magic and The Imaginarium which under the leadership of Andy Serkis is continuing to redefine the art of story telling through motion capture. Fashion is another UK strength and is a great example of how products can redefine our needs and desires. Lauren Bowker of The Unseen is a great example of an Innovate UK project in this area that brought together high fashion with chemistry in order to create clothing that changes its colour as the wind blows over it – quite breathtaking. This quadrant is not just about the creative and fashion industries working in their own areas. Its about a growing trend which I believe we will see emerge even more strongly the next five years – the creative economy – a fusion of the arts with science, design, technology and engineering and that is good news for the UK, given our exceptional strengths in all of these disciplines.
Innovate UK Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency and is part of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. It works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy. Since 2007 it has invested over £1.5bn and has helped over 5000 companies in projects estimated to add £7.5bn to the UK economy, creating 35,000 jobs. |
