Government plans to put UK at front of global innovation race

Plans to boost private sector investment and put the UK at the front of the global innovation race were announced in July 2021 as part of the Government's Innovation Strategy. The Innovation Strategy is the Government’s long-term vision to put innovation at the heart of building back better. It aims to boost private sector investment in R&D across the whole of the UK and create the right conditions for all businesses to innovate.

The strategy identifies areas where the UK has globally competitive R&D and industrial strength which will transform the economy. Areas include:

Advanced materials and manufacturing.
AI, digital and advanced computing.
Bioinformatics and genomics.
Engineering biology.
Electronics, photonics and quantum.
Energy and environment technologies.
Robotics and smart machines.

Highlights of the Innovation Strategy include a commitment from the Government to:

Increase annual public investment on R&D to a record £22 billion.
Ensure government procurement is proactive and supportive, providing a route to market for innovative new products and services.
Consult on how regulation can ensure that the UK is well placed to extract the best value from innovation.
Commission the Regulatory Horizons Council to consider how best to support innovation through regulation, including looking whether there are a set of high level guiding principles for regulation that may apply broadly to any sector of innovation.
Introduce new high potential individual and scale-up visa routes, and revitalise the innovator route to attract and retain high skilled, globally mobile innovation talent.
Undertake an independent review to assess landscape of UK organisations undertaking all forms of research, development and innovation.
Reduce complexity for innovative companies by developing an online finance and innovation hub between Innovate UK and the British Business Bank by July 2022.
Expand IP education programme for researchers and launch International IP Services to bolster innovative companies’ and researchers’ ability to confidently collaborate, export and invest overseas.
Publish of an action plan on ‘Standards for the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, promoting standards that enable innovation to flourish.
Invest £200 million through the British Business Bank’s Life Sciences Investment Programme to target the growth-stage funding gap faced by UK life science companies.
Support 30,000 senior managers of small- and medium-sized businesses through Help to Grow, a digital tool for adopting digital technologies.