The DTI survey report published in 2001 indicated that The UK's R&D in the fields of IT, electronics, communications, and creative content is at least on a par with the best in the world.

The report, entitled "UK R&D Strengths in IT, Electronics and Communications (ITEC) and Creative Content Industries (CCI)", is available from the Download centre in full and summary forms.

R&D Eco-systems
Most of the best TEC activity in the UK is found in non-geographic clusters, which the report terms  'ITEC-Eco-systems'.  These clusters have sprung up around the areas of common interest for the leading companies.  Some of the most successful co-operations have been with partners who are not based in the same part of the country.

Innovation obviously springs from many and various new ideas, but throughout the life-cycle of R&D these new ideas must be filtered out and consolidated. The ITEC Eco-system process ensures that this happens, and provides a stable base for success for mature businesses. Better use of this process might also help the University sector to play its full part in both the early stages and later on when the idea is being taken to market.

The report suggested that this type of process could be further encouraged by establishing an 'Office of ITEC Eco-system facilitation'.

R&D strengths and weaknesses
The DTI survey identified that the UK is particularly strong in communications R&D, both in hardware and network management software.   The UK also has a strong presence in the Internet, in such areas as user applications software, middleware, photonic components and microelectronics.  These six fields accounted for more than half (53%) of R&D effort in UK-based firms. 

In terms of the wider R&D base, a large majority of respondents considered the overall quality of R&D workers to be a major UK strength.  However, concerns were expressed about the ability of higher education to provide sufficient numbers of qualified workers to allow the industry to grow in size and scale.

A final problem for the UK as a whole, which was repeatedly expressed in the ITEC sector, was that while Britain excels in the creation of new technologies, it often fails to capitalise on their use and commercial development.    The ability to translate technological developments into products and services that are commercially marketable is a key issue for UK ITEC R&D in the future.