Over Christmas I'm exploring the various parts of the UK Innovation landscape. The start point is the work mapping innovation organisations that provide the underpinning for an economy based around innovations i.e. new products and services to market. Pausing only to recognise that new ideas and inventions aren't the same as innovation we set off to explore the twelve Innovation Map themes developed originally.
Lets start with funding agencies that support everything from blue skies to industrially specific research. A short, but not exclusive, list includes:-
Research Councils, All seven of them!
Charities e.g. Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research, AIDs Research, RSPCA, Sports bodies
Technology strategy board
Government departments DEFRA, DFID, MOD, DoT, DCLG, DFES and DTI (oops I mean BIS)
Personal resources of individual and groups eg Dyson
Royal Society
company specific programmes
It is worth noting that a substantial amount of funding is from industry, on some measures over 40% of which about a third comes from foreign owned companies, i.e. inward investors.
The most interesting part of monies for research is the trend towards joint funding and therefore a commonality of objectives. Examples include Wellcome and Research Council funding of Diamond, joint approaches by Research Councils and the TSB and partnerships between Research Councils, industry and charities in medical application.
Looking into the future the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation(UKCMRI) with resources from the Medical Research Council, Wellcome and the government headed up by Paul Nurse is pregnant with possibilities. If they could only ensure that they include an incubator and a small Science Park. With a close tie to that doyen of public bodies the British Library next door and the leverage from the greatest University city of the world (London) we could see a Technology Innovation Centre development, with limited TSB funding.
Underpinning this is the recognition of the UK status as a country with a well developed and coordinated funding set up for innovation. We often look for flaws and improvements needed but the bottom line is that the UK approach pulls in overseas research and investment because we are one of the best innovation nations in the world.
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