Opportunity: Encourage UK innovation in a direction that satisfies a local need, whilst enabling companies to extend their global reach, benefiting both themselves and UK exports.
Challenge: UK public investment needs to be balanced across the innovation spectrum to realise the greatest economic benefit. We must also drive a greater number of new skills, technologies, services and spin-out companies reaching commercialisation in the Electronic Systems sector.
Most companies involved in Electronic Systems understand the fundamental importance of R&D. Broad sectoral analyses consistently show that companies involved in Electronic Systems invest at least four times the national average. Crucially, it is the nature of the R&D that companies are undertaking, the pressures driving this, and the barriers to linking R&D to long-term strategic business growth that are the critical factors.
R&D within the Electronic Systems domain spans a broad range of “Technology Readiness Levels”. More than half of the companies interviewed for the ESCO report indicated that their R&D spend is increasing (in real terms) and none indicated it was decreasing.
It is also important to note the dual role of Electronic Systems, as a technology that can enable multiple sectors and a technology that has the potential to create markets for new products and services that simply do not exist today.
The UK is one of the world’s great ‘early adopter’ markets for new technologies and products – fertile proving ground for fuelling innovation. This is complemented by world-class institutions such as the NHS, BBC, the police, airports and transport infrastructures. Growing companies need lead customers – that’s what will drive their capabilities to become world-class product and service providers. However, according to the World Economic Forum, the UK ranks a poor 45th of 144 for government procurement of advanced technology products, so there is plenty of opportunity for improvement in strategic purchasing to benefit this sector.
The UK is also fortunate to have leading agencies such as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). Fortifying our efforts along the Research, Development and Innovation agenda has the potential to amplify long term economic results.
The opportunity therefore clearly exists to effectively utilize and help guide future investments.
“It is vital that the Electronic Systems sector fully engages with EPSRC, TSB and European funding to provide clear input to their decision-making processes and seek to align stakeholder interests on funding priorities which are strongly aligned with high innovation potential.” Professor Steve Beaumont, The University of Glasgow
