Delegates to attend innovation conference as entrepreneurs hope to seal deals with investors
A smart fridge that suggests recipes for dinner, or a toothbrush that can do instant health checks are some of the ideas to transform everyday life that might be glimpsed at an innovation conference on Friday linked to next week's G8 summit.
Coming up with bright ideas is how the UK will pay its way in the world, according to David Cameron, who has made "innovation as a driver for growth and trade" a theme of his G8 presidency. "We won't be the ones who turn out low-cost goods in huge factories. We will succeed by being the ideas people," he said last week.
Some 250 entrepreneurs, scientists, designers and policymakers from 22 countries are expected at the conference in London. Delegates bound for the G8 summit in Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh, will hear from science minister David Willetts, entrepreneur Richard Branson, as well as Zaha Hadid, the architect behind the curvy London Olympics aquatic centre, and Thomas Heatherwick, who redesigned the London bus to great acclaim.
Other speakers include Ron Dennis, executive chairman of racing car company McLaren, and Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, the online university platform that threatens to shake up lecture halls.
The idea behind the conference is to sell the UK to potential investors and put British entrepreneurs in touch with them and international researchers.
Delegates will also have the chance to visit the Big Innovation Centre, which describes itself as a "do tank" that wants to kickstart innovation, by bringing together some of Britain's biggest companies, such as Barclays, GSK and BAE Systems, as well as a university consortium that includes Oxford, Cambridge and University College London.
"We are the UK's leading test bed for open innovation," said Birgitte Andersen, economics professor and director of the centre. Its steering group includes senior corporate executives, scientists, an economist, the chief executive of the Design Council and the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.
Andersen believes companies can achieve more by working together than by innovating alone – a big departure from how innovation happened in the past. Traditionally, companies had centrally planned research and development departments, where new ideas were carefully guarded secrets. Governments stayed in the background and helped to support these companies by building up academic institutions.
Companies and academia are now using a more collaborative approach, says Andersen. "The new paradigm that the government needs to look at is open innovation. It is not small or medium or large [companies], it is not government, nor universities, it is about how they all work together."
This open model of innovation requires an enterprising state, she adds, where government takes an active role in promoting innovation.
By 2025 she thinks large companies will be working with universities, with government playing a decisive role, to solve problems in innovative ways.
Anderson wants the G8 delegates to take home a broader view of innovation. In her view it is as much about creating services or reorganising supply chains, as it is about innovation in the lab. "Most of the time it doesn't end up as a patent, it doesn't show up in R&D spending."
Doubters might note that innovation is often shrouded in lofty rhetoric that evaporates in the UK's consumer-driven economy. In the early days of the 1997 Labour government, an adviser to Tony Blair pondered whether the UK could become "the California of Europe". At the dawn of the millennium, Blair and other EU leaders dreamt up a target that Europe would become "the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010".
Fast-forward a decade and Europe's economy is stagnating, while UK spending on research lags. The latest Eurostat data shows that in 2010 the UK spent less on research and development than the EU average and less than the United States and Japan.
"The big issue with the UK is lack of investment in private sector research," said Paul Nightingale, professor of science and technology policy research at the University of Sussex. Many private-sector companies don't innovate because they can make money in other ways, he says, citing privatised electricity companies that can turn a profit by "sweating their assets", rather than investing in research that might not pay off for half a century. "Given the size of the UK economy we would expect to see many more firms growing into global players."
Andersen points out that the companies working with the Big Innovation Centre employ 160,000 people and make up 5% of research and development spending in Europe. By working together, these companies can pool their risks and reduce the risk of costly mistakes. "It is important not to be afraid of failure," she said. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
A smart fridge that suggests recipes for dinner, or a toothbrush that can do instant health checks are some of the ideas to transform everyday life that might be glimpsed at an innovation conference on Friday linked to next week's G8 summit.
Coming up with bright ideas is how the UK will pay its way in the world, according to David Cameron, who has made "innovation as a driver for growth and trade" a theme of his G8 presidency. "We won't be the ones who turn out low-cost goods in huge factories. We will succeed by being the ideas people," he said last week.
Some 250 entrepreneurs, scientists, designers and policymakers from 22 countries are expected at the conference in London. Delegates bound for the G8 summit in Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh, will hear from science minister David Willetts, entrepreneur Richard Branson, as well as Zaha Hadid, the architect behind the curvy London Olympics aquatic centre, and Thomas Heatherwick, who redesigned the London bus to great acclaim.
Other speakers include Ron Dennis, executive chairman of racing car company McLaren, and Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, the online university platform that threatens to shake up lecture halls.
The idea behind the conference is to sell the UK to potential investors and put British entrepreneurs in touch with them and international researchers.
Delegates will also have the chance to visit the Big Innovation Centre, which describes itself as a "do tank" that wants to kickstart innovation, by bringing together some of Britain's biggest companies, such as Barclays, GSK and BAE Systems, as well as a university consortium that includes Oxford, Cambridge and University College London.
"We are the UK's leading test bed for open innovation," said Birgitte Andersen, economics professor and director of the centre. Its steering group includes senior corporate executives, scientists, an economist, the chief executive of the Design Council and the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.
Andersen believes companies can achieve more by working together than by innovating alone – a big departure from how innovation happened in the past. Traditionally, companies had centrally planned research and development departments, where new ideas were carefully guarded secrets. Governments stayed in the background and helped to support these companies by building up academic institutions.
Companies and academia are now using a more collaborative approach, says Andersen. "The new paradigm that the government needs to look at is open innovation. It is not small or medium or large [companies], it is not government, nor universities, it is about how they all work together."
This open model of innovation requires an enterprising state, she adds, where government takes an active role in promoting innovation.
By 2025 she thinks large companies will be working with universities, with government playing a decisive role, to solve problems in innovative ways.
Anderson wants the G8 delegates to take home a broader view of innovation. In her view it is as much about creating services or reorganising supply chains, as it is about innovation in the lab. "Most of the time it doesn't end up as a patent, it doesn't show up in R&D spending."
Doubters might note that innovation is often shrouded in lofty rhetoric that evaporates in the UK's consumer-driven economy. In the early days of the 1997 Labour government, an adviser to Tony Blair pondered whether the UK could become "the California of Europe". At the dawn of the millennium, Blair and other EU leaders dreamt up a target that Europe would become "the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010".
Fast-forward a decade and Europe's economy is stagnating, while UK spending on research lags. The latest Eurostat data shows that in 2010 the UK spent less on research and development than the EU average and less than the United States and Japan.
"The big issue with the UK is lack of investment in private sector research," said Paul Nightingale, professor of science and technology policy research at the University of Sussex. Many private-sector companies don't innovate because they can make money in other ways, he says, citing privatised electricity companies that can turn a profit by "sweating their assets", rather than investing in research that might not pay off for half a century. "Given the size of the UK economy we would expect to see many more firms growing into global players."
Andersen points out that the companies working with the Big Innovation Centre employ 160,000 people and make up 5% of research and development spending in Europe. By working together, these companies can pool their risks and reduce the risk of costly mistakes. "It is important not to be afraid of failure," she said. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.