New direction

The UK Government is clear in its ambition to maintain Britain’s status as a science and tech superpower.

What ministers are also clear on is their aim to level up so-called ‘left behind’ regions, once reliant on legacy industries for jobs and growth. Ensuring Britain’s position as a global innovation powerhouse while spreading prosperity across the country go hand in hand and the faster the two agendas start to align, the better.

According to the most recent government figures, 86% of private R&D funding – which companies tend to raise from initial public offerings or venture capitalists – is focused on the ‘Golden Triangle’ of London, Oxford and Cambridge. Improving regional productivity, however, should not come at the expense of growth in the South East.

Moreover, the amount of public sector funding of R&D is also heavily geographically biased, with a report from NESTA showing that an additional £4 billion a year would be spent in the regions outside London and the South East if spending were equalised.

Much about geography

If the future growth of the life sciences industry is too geographically concentrated, the wider socio-economic benefits will be minimal.

That is why the levelling-up White Paper’s stated mission to ensure that ‘by 2030, domestic public investment in R&D outside the Greater South East will increase by at least 40%’ must be realised.

Ministers must also be clearer on what these spending commitments actually entail. The plan for the distribution of some of the increased R&D budget is far from clear.
The paper doesn’t say whether the 40% is in real terms or simply compared to today’s budget. This is important because inflation could easily eat away at most of that increase. This risks a real-terms increase of just a few per cent or possibly nothing at all.

In addition to greater clarity on spending, we need a set of new performance metrics, overseen by an independent body, akin to the Office for Budget Responsibility, to monitor the UK’s progress on boosting competitiveness.

Take Nottingham as an example – home to one of our science parks, a top public research university and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, one of Europe’s largest acute teaching units. Our own research, conducted in partnership with JLL, saw a huge incline in the number of life sciences start-ups in the Midlands between 2016 and 2020. While small in size, these businesses make important economic contributions in the form – life sciences support 35,000 jobs in Nottingham alone.

Ultimately, public-private partnerships will be key to turbocharging the growth of regional life sciences hubs, such as Nottingham. Industry groups and policy makers must better collaborate with the NHS. After all, it is one of the world’s largest employers and a primary beneficiary of UK government spending and, as a means of scaling up innovation, that can be exported commercially.

The successful vaccine roll-out shows just what can be achieved if the NHS’s immense resources are marshalled correctly.

Dr Glenn Crocker MBE is Executive Director of We Are Pioneer Group.
Go to wearepioneergroup.com