Document(s): 

49_-_the_race_to_the_top-review_of_gov_sc_inno_policies.pdf

Author(s): 

Lord Sainsbury of Turville

Year of publication: 

2007

This Review of the Government’s science and innovation policies was commissioned by Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, as part of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (see Terms of Reference in Annex A). He asked us to look in particular at the role that science and innovation can play in enabling the country to compete against low-wage, emerging economies such as China and India. This we have done enthusiastically because we believe that this is one of
the major challenges the UK faces, and in Chapter 1 we have set out the strategy we believe the country should adopt if we are to be a winner in “The race to the top”.
In producing our Review we have consulted many organisations, including companies, trade associations, universities, the Trade Union Congress and government departments. We have collected their views about the opportunities and barriers to innovation in the UK, and involved
them in the development of new policies. This approach has resulted in a review which we believe is both innovative and firmly focused on creating the conditions which industry, scientists and engineers have told us will most effectively stimulate innovation. I would like to thank all those who have been involved for the proactive and positive approach they have taken, and to thank our advisory panel (Professor Brian Cantor, Sir John Chisholm, Hermann Hauser, Sir Robin Saxby and Richard Lambert) for their valuable input. And I would like to acknowledge the excellent support I have received in producing this Review from the Treasury team led by Sophie Dean.
The Review builds on what we believe is an evidence-based appraisal of our innovation performance. This is set out in Chapter 2, and shows that in a number of critical areas we are doing better than is commonly thought. In recent years the share of high-technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services in the UK’s total value added has grown rapidly (Chapter 1), there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of knowledge transfer from British universities (Chapter 4) and we are beginning to see the growth of exciting high-technology clusters around many of our world-class research universities (Chapter 9). At the same time, we continue to maintain our outstanding record of scientific discovery. In the future it will no longer be necessary to start every report of this kind with the dreary statement that, while the UK has an excellent record of research, we have a poor record of turning discoveries into new products and services.
While we believe that our record of innovation is better than is commonly supposed, we have not yet produced the best possible conditions to stimulate innovation in industry. We see many opportunities to build on the successful policies that have been introduced in recent years and to improve our performance, and we have put forward a number of key recommendations covering the Technology Strategy Board (Chapter 3), knowledge transfer (Chapter 4), science and engineering education (Chapter 7), government departments (Chapter 8) and the Regional Development Agencies (Chapter 9). These recommendations cover many areas of government and, therefore, their implementations will require careful and effective monitoring.