In a recent article in the London Times by Claire Fox, the head of the Ideas Institute in London, she highlights the underlying issues of lack of investment in a production economy and aversion to risk that had over years already weakened the UK economy and made it highly vulnerable to the current financial led crisis as well as undermining the chances of recovery.

She goes on to suggest that the business and political leaders need to encourage people to think on how they can make a difference to the economy going forward and how academic institutes are now fettered in their efforts to come up with new ideas to feed into the economy.

The suggestion that she makes regarding the need for support to pure science and open ended-research is laudable, but while the article does mention investment in productive activity it does not cover the other failing within the UK, which is the failure to provide support to the transformation of research ideas into value; innovation.

The government has indicated the importance of innovation to the future of the UK in the global economy, but persistently places the support for this into the academic community.

Where is the effective support to the startup and SME businesses that need and can make use of these ideas?

Ironically the EU, which is often seen as the bureaucratic equivalent of a ball and chain, is providing support to SME’s who need but can’t afford cutting edge research through one aspect of the Framework 7 programme. However, the total EU budget is a fraction of that in its core research programmes.

The UK lags behind the leaders in Europe as well as Japan and Europe in spending on Innovation. We need to innovate at a faster pace, transforming ideas into value if we are to remain a leader in the world economy and this requires investment.