The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published the ‘UK Innovation Strategy: Leading the future by creating it’ on 22 July 2021.
Its foundations are ‘The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’ (18 November 2020), ‘Build Back Better: our plan for growth’ (3 March 2021), ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy’ (16 March 2021) and ‘Defence and Security Industrial Strategy’ (23 March 2021).
The UK Innovation Strategy sets out the government’s vision to make the UK a global hub for innovation by 2035.
This overarching aim is supported by 4 ‘Pillars’:
- Pillar 1: Unleashing business – “We will fuel businesses who want to innovate.”
- Pillar 2: People – “We will make the UK the most exciting place for innovation talent.”
- Pillar 3: Institutions & Places – “We will ensure our research, development & innovation institutions serve the needs of businesses and places across the UK.”
- Pillar 4: Missions & Technologies – “We will stimulate innovation to tackle major challenges faced by the UK and the world and drive capability in key technologies.”
The key Actions to accomplish this include:
Pillar 1: Unleashing business
- Increase annual public investment in R&D to £22 billion.
- Develop an online finance and innovation hub between Innovate UK and the British Business Bank within the next 12 months.
- Consult on how regulation can ensure that the UK is well-placed to extract the best value from innovation.
- Form a new Business Innovation Forum to drive Implementation of this Strategy.
Pillar 2: People
- Help to Grow: Management will support 30,000 senior managers of SMEs to boost their business’s performance, resilience and long-term growth.
- Introduce new High Potential Individual and Scale-up visa routes, and revitalise the Innovator route to attract and retain high-skilled, globally mobile innovation talent.
Pillar 3: Institutions & Places
- Undertake an independent review, led by Paul Nurse, of the UK organisational R&I landscape.
- Allocate £127 million through the Strength in Places Fund to 5 projects that will develop R&D capacity and support local growth across the UK.
- Invest a further £25 million through the Connecting Capability Fund to help drive further economic growth through university-business innovation.
Pillar 4: Missions & Technologies
- Establish a new Innovation Missions programme “to tackle some of the most significant issues confronting the UK in the coming years. […] The Innovation Missions Programme will support our Global Britain ambition, complementing wider efforts to drive new trade, investment, and scientific partnerships, and helping to harness the transformative power of UK-backed science and innovation to tackle shared challenges.”
- Focus on the key seven technology families where the UK has globally competitive R&D and industrial strength:
- Advanced Materials and Manufacturing
- AI, Digital and Advanced Computing
- Bioinformatics and Genomics
- Engineering Biology
- Electronics, Photonics and Quantum
- Energy and Environment Technologies
- Robotics and Smart Machines
- Launch eight Prosperity Partnerships to establish business-led research projects to develop transformational technologies, with £59 million of industry, university and government investment.
MSC R&D
R&D Tax Relief is a critical element of the innovation funding landscape. MSC R&D is a leading R&D Tax Credits specialist, working with clients across many of the technology families.
We also work closely with key industry bodies (e.g. techUK, CBI) to ensure that the benefits of R&D Tax Credits are fully recognised and that the scheme is developed appropriately.
