Innovate UK designed to better attract businesses
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Innovate UK designed to better attract businesses www.innovateuk.gov.uk
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he United Kingdom’s Innovate UK, the country’s biggest source of government backing for research and development (R&D), mixes materialsspecific programs with general support for industry sectors. With a budget of more than £560 million (approx. USD$800 million) a year, Innovate UK has grown to become the main source of public support for R&D in the United Kingdom. When the UK’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB) rebranded itself as Innovate UK two years ago, the organization was acknowledging changes in its role since it started as a small but influential committee with a small budget. Drawn mostly from industry, TSB advised the UK government on its support for technology and innovation. Set up in 2004 as an internal body within the government department responsible for innovation, the TSB was a small player
on the R&D scene. Its initial budget was just £150 million (USD$210 million) over three years. The organization, which became an independent body in 2007, has invested around £1.8 billion (USD$2.5 billion) in innovation over the past decade. It claims that this spending was “more than matched by the private sector.” Along with much of the UK government’s support for research, Innovate UK has maintained its budgets at a time of large cuts in public spending. It is not just the level of spending and the name of the organization that have changed over the years; more recently the focus has shifted from technologies to “sector groups.” These currently include emerging and enabling technologies, manufacturing and materials, and health and life sciences. This new emphasis contrasts with the more generic areas that TSB had backed, such as advanced materials, electronics and
photonics, and information communication and technology. The change in emphasis is designed in part to make it easier for companies, especially small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), to understand, with the hope that more companies will bid for backing. “We are trying to make our programs a lot simpler,” says Zoe Webster, Head of High Value Manufacturing at Innovate UK. Webster explains that the organization sees the sector group for manufacturing and materials as “a main home for materials innovation” under the new structure. The simplification has also led to changes in how Innovate UK runs the competitions that are at the heart of its process for selecting projects to back. Companies can submit proposals for grants for research projects that last between six months and three years and cost from £50,000 to £2 million. Each project must have at least two partners, including a SME, and be led by a business. It can, though, include research organizations such as universities. Innovate UK’s manufacturing and materials sector group plans to invest up to £15 million in its current competition, with a sec ond competition due later this year. The organization hopes that the new simpler system, with more general calls for entries rather than defined calls for particular technol
