It's a harmful myth that UK science can't translate ideas into practice
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Loading... - Chimlin Bui
- 15 Nov 2021
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Britain’s innovators are unfairly tarnished by a tired fable: that the nation’s inventiveness is matched by an unworldly lack of commercial savvy. Anecdotes abound of the proverbial inventor tinkering in his garden shed, or the academic unable to see the economic potential of her discoveries. Britons discover, the rest of the world cashes in. But these are self-flagellating myths that should be consigned to the history books.
In fact, if we adjust for the size of our economies, the UK now exceeds the United States in numbers of spinouts formed, disclosures of discoveries, patents and licences. In emerging fields such as low-carbon, the UK is forming twice as many spinouts per trillion dollars of GDP as the US. Employment growth by digital technology companies in the UK is five times faster than for the rest of the economy.
Britain’s deep science base, and the startups that emerge from it, are an economic boon. But more needs to be done. Policy makers should focus on how they cultivate the nation’s science and technology sectors – and the university system that powers them.
Examine the clusters around Britain’s great universities and you’ll see the likes of DeepMind and Improbable, multi-billion dollar AI businesses formed by London and Cambridge academics and classmates; Autolus, an autoimmune cancer therapy from University College London (UCL); Ceres Power, a fuel cell company from Imperial College; gene sequencing firm Oxford Nanopore; and cybersecurity pioneers Darktrace.
Such rapidly growing technology companies are essential to improving productivity and solving major societal challenges in healthcare, the environment, energy, infrastructure and security.
The common ingredient, in the UK and around the world, is access to research-intensive universities. They have the professors and labs to educate future talent; they can work in collaborative partnerships with industry, and support, mentor and incubate start-ups.
Evidence shows that technology transfer from the best UK universities compares favourably internationally. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Manchester and Edinburgh regularly benchmark their performance in technology transfer. This includes the number of invention disclosures per £100 million investment in research, where we calculate that the UK (74) outperforms the US (58). In patent productivity, the UK slightly outperforms the US, and in IP income, it is catching up: the US achieves around 4% of research resource, the UK 3%. In start-up productivity, the UK and US are at parity. And in industrial income as a percentage of research resource, the UK attracts around 10% against 7.5% in the US.
The UK is no longer the sick man of commercialisation, but questions remain as to how it can realise the ambition of the industrial strategy to become “the world’s most innovative economy”. How can the flow of ideas be accelerated? What are the gaps that universities can fill? How can big business improve its receptiveness to new technology, and the ability to work with smaller cutting-edge technology companies?
A good start would be substantial new support for the innovation clusters in major cities that are growing around research-intensive universities. The government needs to implement the industrial strategy’s sector deals, bringing together top-performing businesses and universities. The advent of a UK knowledge exchange framework will help keep a spotlight on performance. This is how we will meet the government’s laudable objective of the public and private sectors investing 2.4% of GDP in R&D by 2027.
Businesses must do more to adopt and adapt new technologies flowing from universities and to work with a growing number of fast-growth technology companies. Universities can improve the licensing of technology and make know-how available through consultancy and shared collaborative spaces.
The US is more successful than the UK in scaling up businesses rapidly – and this is where universities should maintain deeper involvement. Startups often lack the management talent and organisational capabilities to grow. Scale-ups need access to talented leaders with the experience to navigate successive funding rounds, manage rapid employment growth, find appropriate facilities and partners, and maintain deep links with their academic mothership.
The widely held myth that the UK is good at science and poor at exploitation does not bear scrutiny. But no serious economy can afford to rest on these laurels: governments around the world are using policies to stimulate innovation ecosystems, measure performance and incentivise rapid growth.
We should be examining which sectors have the potential for the greatest growth, job creation and societal benefit. With the right government, business and university coordination, the UK can move on from being competitors to world-beaters.
