The UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) has recently issued a White Paper on how the government plans to help the UK ‘excel at all types of innovation.’
You can download the press release, the executive summary or the full report (all 98 pages). The role of the Department is ‘to champion innovation across the board, working with partners across and outside government.’ The Secretary of State, John Denham, has made a number of commitments and proposals in the White Paper. These include:
- Supporting businesses in tapping into the demands of new markets in the UK by bringing forward five new ‘innovation platforms’ to co-ordinate Government support and funding.
- A new initiative to provide at least 1,000 ‘innovation vouchers’ every year by 2011, helping support and fund small and medium-sized businesses to work with a university, further education college or research organisation of their choice to develop a new product or service;
- Doubling the number of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between businesses, universities and colleges.
- Piloting of a new Specialisation and Innovation Fund to boost the capacity of further education colleges to unlock workforce talent and to support businesses in raising innovation potential;
- Expanding the network of National Skills Academies with one academy for every major sector of the economy.
- Piloting a new Innovation Index in 2009 to measure UK innovation managed by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).
- Sponsoring new Partnerships for Innovation bringing together venture capital with universities, business and other local partners to jointly develop innovative solutions.
- Establishing an Innovation Research Centre in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), NESTA and the TSB.
- Boosting the ability of small firms to exploit their intellectual property by training Business Link advisors in IP management by the summer of 2009.
- A new Annual Innovation Review to provide a comprehensive annual assessment of promoting innovation in the public and private sectors. The first of these will be published this autumn.
I met a member of the DIUS who told me that they are looking for feedback on these ideas so please take a look at them in detail and add your comments here or directly to the Department. I will comment on some of the plans in due course.
Paul Sloane
Tags: Britain, creativity, DIUS, government, Innovation, paper, UK, white
Hello Paul,
On page 14/15 of the report, I read this:
“….innovative businesses are increasingly engaging in “open innovation†– reaching outside their walls to find ideas at different stages of development and then developing them in-house. They might reach across sectoral boundaries, up and down the supply chain to lead users or suppliers or out to SMEs or universities.â€
Do you have some examples of company / corporate blogs with high comment activity?
Thanks in advance.
Regards, Frank
Paul, thank you for drawing attention to the Innovation Nation White Paper and for encouraging debate about the outlined policy proposals. We are investigating the use of engaging with online communities to help shape the implementation of the WP and as such I’m really keen to hear people’s vies and kick-start the debate about:
the usefulness of a no nonsense guide that assists SME’s access finance;
the types of research themes/subjects that the research centre should be focussing on to ensure better policy development;
how to stimulate and incentivise innovation within the public service; and
how best to develop new partnerships with venture capitalists, academics, businesses and other partners.
Let the debate begin!
David Evans, Director of Innovation
David Evans said ‘I’m really keen to hear people’s vies and kick-start the debate about the usefulness of a no nonsense guide that assists SME’s access finance.’
Anything that the government can do to make it easier for entrepreneurs to start new businesses will help innovation in Britain. So lets keep all the start up and registration form-filling to a minimum. Access to finance is important for many small businesses so a simple guide might be helpful but surely it should be website rather than a booklet. Is there such a site today where SMEs can see information about bank loans, government grants, access to VCs, business angels etc? I do not know of such a site.
Paul Sloane