Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Innovation report sparks major debate on policies

Innovation report sparks major debate on policies

EARLY 2024 marked yet another successful Leicestershire Innovation Festival, followed by a stunning awards event, recognising some of the best and brightest innovators in our region.

We’ve just marked the 20-year milestone for Medilink Midlands. This Midlandsbased life sciences innovation-enabling organisation continues to go from strength to strength. Many more innovation-centric companies are right here in our region, within an innovation ecosystem I’ve long championed at every opportunity.


The end of Q1 saw the publication of the UK Innovation Report 2024 from the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy group. This report, described as “Benchmarking the UK’s industrial and innovation performance in a global context,” is an excellent and thoughtprovoking analysis. It compares the UK to other countries, analysing sector innovation and competitiveness. It serves as a serious prompt for key policy considerations.

The paper talks openly about the potential for significant shifts in innovation policy, given we are in an election year. There is an opportunity to reflect on and renew policy trajectories. It’s clear that, whatever the election outcome, the future policy picture on innovation is anything but certain.

The report authors advocate a position I would encourage, one of adaptation of existing policy post-election to ensure some degree of continuity. I’d go further and suggest we need evolution, indeed acceleration and progression, but no sea-change for innovation policy. Support must rapidly build and grow, not be “swapped out” for different support or focus areas if UK innovation momentum is to continue. That was a material early prompt for thoughts in the report for me, but there’s much more.

There’s a reminder, a nudge in fact, about the Department for Business and Trade’s Advanced Manufacturing Plan. This plan proposes £4.5 billion investment from 2025 with a focus on several sectors, including life sciences. Forward public investment to grow the sector, including our domestic production capabilities post-Brexit, is critical. Will it be implemented in its current form and quantum? Let’s see.

Drawing on 2019-2022 datasets, there’s analysis of the macro performance of the UK economy, comparing it to Switzerland, Korea, and Germany. The conclusions are interesting. The UK performed well against “peers,” with the fastest growth rate during 2021 of 8.8 per cent, starting to close the gap on pre-pandemic levels. Between 2019 and 2021, labour productivity in manufacturing increased by 9.1 per cent. However, there was a concerning retraction in manufacturing output (-3.3 per cent) in 2022.

Knowledge-intensive services and manufacturing have underpinned post-Covid economic recovery, so the 2022 manufacturing retraction is surely of concern. Switzerland outperformed the countries analysed during 2022 with high manufacturing growth, driven largely by its chemical and pharmaceutical sectors. This is something the UK could strive to achieve, but we’ll need focused investment and clear policy enablers to do so. Generic pharmaceutical investment, in particular, has been almost entirely absent since Brexit, according to analysis by the British Generics Manufacturers Association (BGMA).

The report authors note how the UK is a leading hub for academic research. The adverse counterbalance to this is that we are least able to convert research output into commercial success. That’s a finding that troubles me as an entrepreneur and an academic. It should trouble policymakers too. Will they respond? Let’s see.

I was concerned but not surprised to see that UK investment in R&D falls behind the leading nations. We know this regionally, from a public sector investment perspective, all too well. The East Midlands has received the lowest level of public R&D investment over many years.

This has stifled our true innovation potential and more. It has removed the oxygen from both entrepreneurs and academics who have often left the region in order to grow. Too many have taken their skills, their energy, their ideas, and their enthusiasm elsewhere. This outflow must be reversed quickly now to underpin our regional economy and that of the UK as a whole.

Read Also: Modi to take oath for third term over the weekend

It’s great to read analysis that confirms potential for the UK. That’s exactly what I felt when I read that we’re training a high number of students in STEM subjects. Staying with STEM for now, the authors highlight that 42 per cent of graduates completed STEM disciplines, and of those, 52 per cent were health-related studies. UK employers in the same period report finding it hard to employ staff with scientific knowledge and in medical or production areas.

This is something I experienced firsthand. Overcoming this will need sustained government policy and investment to really turn this “super tanker” of a problem. Policy needs to be carefully and consciously crafted in this space to see success.

There’s much more besides in this analysis. In an important year for potential big shifts in public policy, private sector investment, and the UK economy within a dynamic and challenging global context, it is sound and timely food for thought.

Will all those that need to take the due time they should to “digest” and act on all this paper presents? Will they curate next steps, underpinned by the evidence, which shows a path with many opportunities ahead for UK innovation? I hope so. Let’s see.

More For You

Dynamic dance passion

Mevy Qureshi conducting a Bollywoodinspired exercise programme

Dynamic dance passion

Mevy Qureshi

IN 2014, I pursued my passion for belly dancing at the Fleur Estelle Dance School in Covent Garden, London. Over the next three years, I mastered techniques ranging from foundational movements to advanced choreography and performance skills. This dedication to dance led to performing in front of audiences, including a memorable solo rendition of Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, which showcased dynamic stage presence and delighted the crowd.

However, my connection to dance began much earlier. The energy, vibrancy, and storytelling of Bollywood captivated me from a very young age. The expressive movements, lively music, and colourful costumes offered a sense of joy and empowerment that became the foundation of my dance passion.

Keep ReadingShow less
‘Will Gaza surrender if brutal strategy of famine is forced?’

A boy looks on as he eats at a camp sheltering displaced Palestinians set up at a landfil in the Yarmuk area in Gaza City on March 20, 2025. Israel bombarded Gaza and pressed its ground operations on March 20, after issuing what it called a "last warning" for Palestinians to return hostages and remove Hamas from power.

Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images

‘Will Gaza surrender if brutal strategy of famine is forced?’

THERE was supposed to be a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict, yet Israel appears to have turned to a new and deadly weapon – starvation of the besieged population.

Is this a cunning way to avoid accusations of breaking the peace agreement? Instead of re-starting the bombardment, is mass famine the new tactic?

Keep ReadingShow less
Bollywood meets Hollywood: A fusion of glamour, identity, and rebellion

Shiveena Haque

Bollywood meets Hollywood: A fusion of glamour, identity, and rebellion

Shiveena Haque

BOLLYWOOD and Hollywood are so similar, yet worlds apart, but their influences run deep. While each is celebrated for being unique, what isn’t often discussed or acknowledged are the times when they have beautifully blended, including in everyday life.

Many of these influences will always run deep. From vintage Hollywood to sparkles of Hindi cinema, their romance has created many passionate, brave spirits, with a dash of rebellion, adorned with diamantes and dramatic gestures. One of them is me! It’s a flame that will never go out.

Keep ReadingShow less
Comment: Ramadan’s message of unity, charity, and faith can inspire us all

Nigel Huddleston

Comment: Ramadan’s message of unity, charity, and faith can inspire us all

Nigel Huddleston

RAMADAN is a unique and special time for Muslims in Britain and across the world. It is a time to reflect on and renew their faith, through devotion and spirituality, while fulfilling the five pillars of Islam.

During this hugely important time of prayer and fasting, the message of Ramadan is one we can all relate to – especially the importance of charity and compassion. These core values at the heart of Islamic faith are the very same values that those of all faiths or none can aspire to.

Keep ReadingShow less
Comment: ‘UK’s multicultural identity owes much to south Asians’

Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford, chair of the project; Vikram Doraiswami, India’s high commissioner to the UK; Lord Navnit Dholakia, former deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats; and Professor Mark Smith, vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton, at the launch of the Ramniklal Solanki Pioneers Project in July 2024

Comment: ‘UK’s multicultural identity owes much to south Asians’

Sabu S Padmadas

IN 1951, Sardar Harnam Singh Roudh arrived by himself to England from Punjab, carrying only a suitcase of clothes and £3 in his pocket.

His legacy as a pioneer is best remembered for his compassionate leadership and selfless service in uniting people from diverse backgrounds, while championing the local Sikh community to thrive in a multicultural Britain.

Keep ReadingShow less