| Good evening, and let me welcome you to the UK Dinner. It gives me great pleasure to see so many of the major international players in the Biotech industry here at this dinner and I hope you will have an extremely pleasant evening.
I have had, ever since I studied at Cambridge, and took my MBA at Columbia University in New York, and throughout my business life, a great interest in science and technology and in the venture capital industry. I was, therefore, delighted when Tony Blair asked me in 1998 to become Minister for Science and Innovation.
UK Ambitions
The ambition of the United Kingdom Government is to make the United Kingdom a country at the leading edge of research and innovation in key high tech industries and in the innovative application of technology in the service sectors. I believe that we are making good progress in achieving this goal, but the challenge we face is to improve on that performance in an evolving European Market, to keep abreast of the rapid developments taking place in the USA, and also to capitalise on our performance in other regions of the World, particularly the Asia/Pacific region.
Government Strategy
The Government strategy for making the U.K. the best possible place for scientific research and innovation has four main elements. Firstly, a substantial programme of investment in the United Kingdom's science base which has enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy, an increase in expenditure well beyond inflation, with the science budget today increasing at 7% per annum in real terms.
Secondly, a major series of programmes to encourage Technology Transfer from our universities to the business sector such as University Challenge which provides seed corn funding to universities, Science Enterprise Centres, which provide access to enterprise skills to undergraduates and graduates in science and engineering, and the £140 million Higher Education Innovation Fund which provides funding to universities to incentivise them to transfer their knowledge into industry. These policies are already beginning to have an impact. In 1999-2000 there were 199 spin-offs from U.K. Universities compared with 70 a year on average in the previous 5 years. So we're beginning to see a real cultural change in our universities. The third part of our strategy is action to create a climate where business is encouraged to invest in R & D and investors are encouraged to invest in small high tech enterprises. For example, recent budgets have introduced tax credits on R & D expenditure for small and large companies, and Capital Gains Tax on unlisted companies is now only 10% if the investment is held for two years.
Finally, there is a strong international dimension to all our policies. We believe that action to encourage innovation at national level is not enough. We must leverage our resources by co-operating globally. As companies respond to the new challenges of the Knowledge Driven Economy it is essential that the Government provides the best framework for scientists and businesses to make international links. As Tony Blair said in his recent speech to the Royal Society:
"Science is both internationally competitive and internationally collaborative. If we are to remain an innovative, forward looking nation, we need to retain the capacity to do this work both on our own and in collaboration with scientists in other nations".
We have, therefore, doubled the number of Science and Technology attachés overseas. This process is under way with dedicated Science and Technology officials now in the key areas across North America, in Europe and in the Asia/Pacific region. Further appointments are to be made in Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Far East, South Africa and Brazil. They report on science policy and technology developments overseas and encourage collaboration, inward investment and trade, developing links for the benefit of the UK research community and industry.
In addition, we have doubled to 16 the team of International Technology Promoters. The ITP's are business people with the experience of developing technology partnerships with UK businesses and overseas organisations. We have also developed a new online system called Globalwatchonline.com, which makes available to industry the reports from science and technology attachés and the International Technology promoters. The website also has access to over one million documents from a carefully screened pool of 600 of the most impressive science and technology websites from around the World in four broad areas, ICT, Life Sciences, Performance Engineering and Sustainable Technologies.
In the United Kingdom we believe that a society that is closed, inward looking and defensive will not long remain at the forefront of science because it cannot take part in global collaboration. We believe that the United Kingdom is stronger when it collaborates internationally and we want the United Kingdom to be a key player in European and global science and we believe strongly that Biotech can make a very positive contribution to the world in the years ahead.
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