Britain has a long history of leadership and innovation, from the steam engine to the World Wide Web, that has brought growth and prosperity. As we look towards the future, investment in science and technology is more important than ever.
The UK outperforms its closest competitors with 4 of the world’s top 10 universities and a technology sector worth over one trillion dollars.
If you put together just 8 of our university towns, they are home to more billion-dollar unicorn start-ups than the whole of France and Germany combined.
The UK Government formed the new Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology in February 2023.
In March the Department published “The Science and Technology Framework”, a strategic vision which sets out 10 key actions to achieve this goal by 2030.
It has been developed in close collaboration with the UK science and technology sector, and represents a commitment to scaling ambition and delivering the most critical actions needed to secure strategic The framework identifies five critical technologies going forward, to be reviewed yearly by the National Science and Technology Council:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Engineering Biology
- Future Telecoms
- Semiconductors
- Quantum technologies
The framework also identifies four key themes to support the development and diffusion of these technologies:
- Attracting the best talent
- Building a skilled workforce for tomorrow's industries
- Providing infrastructure and investment to support technologies to market
- Encouraging a regulatory market that supports innovation
To deliver the plan the UK Government bring froward £250 million committed to ‘technology missions’ in AI, quantum and engineering biology to be set out by future strategies including the AI White Paper and Semiconductor Strategy.
These technologies will also be encouraged through the nine ‘levers’ the framework sets out, with the government to develop a plan for each strand of the framework by Summer 2023.
Each of these sections include measures outlining how the Government will work with the private sector, academia and civil society in order to promote the UK’s strength in science and technology. Some of these are general, such as improving the STEM skills of the population, or more focused on specific crucial technologies themselves.
Other examples include the commitment to raise public R&D funding to £20 billion by 2024-5, and the reform of the pensions regulatory charge cap.
The nine levers are:
- Signalling UK Strengths and Ambitions
- Investment in Research and Development
- Talent and Skills
- Financing Innovative Science and Technology
- Procurement
- International Opportunities
- Access to Physical and Digital Infrastructure
- Regulation and Standards
- An Innovative Public Sector
Guided by this framework, the UK Government aims to grow and maintain the ecosystem needed to attract investment, grow companies, innovate, and deploy a world class science and technology research for good.
STEM skills are crucial for the UK’s productivity and the future workforce relies on many more children and young people being encouraged to take STEM subjects and enter STEM careers