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Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)Foresight / IBB R&D Seminar |
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Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted to be here this evening. This is a unique event which brings together those who are at the heart of a revolution. A knowledge-driven revolution. The 21st century is going to be dominated by knowledge. I am determined that we should exploit this. This is our one great chance to reverse a century of decline and retake our place as one of the great industrial nations. And you are the people to do it. Because you - between you - are the people who can create and exploit one of the main founts of that knowledge - the UK?s science and engineering base.
The Invest In Britain Bureau, which announced record inward investment figures earlier this year, is a driving force behind this process - and indeed this event this evening. Inward investors can be found working in collaboration with academia throughout the UK. Where California has Silicon Valley we have Silicon Glen in Scotland, accompanied by Cambridgeshire?s Silicon Fen, and - so far unlabelled - the Thames Valley corridor west of Heathrow. All these areas are renowned for their high concentrations of cutting-edge technology companies. Today, with 1% of the world?s population the UK produces around 6% of its science. It has an 8% share of the world?s scientific publications and over 9% of citations, placing it second only to the US and significantly ahead of Japan, Germany and France. Britain is also second only to the US in winning major internationally recognised prizes, well ahead of Germany in third place and British research teams are also the first partners of choice for 11 of the member states under the EU R&D framework programmes. It is this high level of internationalism in our industrial R&D that makes the UK so distinctive, and attracts investment from right around the world. Britain?s science and engineering base is quite simply world class. We have more than 100 universities. Many have excellent, and enviable, track records in science and technology-related subjects. Many are global centres of excellence. Others have recognised this - why else would Microsoft set up the only R&D lab outside the US here in the UK? Why else would we be a home to more American and Japanese R&D facilities than any other European country? This pool of talent, of creativity, of scientific know-how, is a national treasure. It would be a tragedy to waste it. That is why the Government announced in July that together with the Wellcome Trust we would be investing an extra £1.4bn in the science base. This will make a real difference - funding new laboratories, equipment and research in areas that are vital to our future national prosperity. But creating this knowledge is not enough. If we are really to revolutionise our industrial performance, really seize the opportunity to catch up and overtake our competitors, we need to do more than create knowledge. We need to exploit it, transfer it, manipulate it, market it and sell it. That will be the real test. Can we take this huge pool of know-how and turn it into commercial opportunity? I believe we can and must. And by we I do not mean simply Government. It is not Government that creates wealth and jobs, it is business that does that. My philosophy is simple - to put the future on Britain?s side; to provide the business environment within which business can compete and win in world markets. Britain has an unrivalled record in attracting inward investment - I take great pride in this, and I am determined to lay the foundations for an even greater performance in the new millennium. But we will not manage that unless we exploit all of our natural advantages. The more people from outside the UK that we can tell about our science base, and what it can do for business the better. Partnerships are the name of the game. The partnership process is one of Britain?s greatest economic strengths, it has attracted the world?s leading companies to this country, and it is the key to long-term prosperity in the years ahead. There are already a number of well-established programmes designed to encourage partnerships between industry and academia. The Teaching Company Scheme - providing financial support to enable high calibre graduates to work in-company on key projects, under the joint supervision of an industrial and an academic supervisor. The company gets the benefit of introducing a fresh technology or process with minimal risk while the academic partner gets experience of applying his or her expertise to a real industrial problem. The young graduate gets a flying start to an industrial career. In collaborative R&D, many companies receive support through the LINK programme. Substantial backing has gone towards the costs of major projects, with universities covering subjects as diverse as medical implants and agrichemicals. And other initiatives include the Smart scheme, providing grants to small and medium size enterprises for feasibility studies into innovative technology, allowing them to develop new products and processes to prototype stage. And then, of course, there is Foresight - tonight?s guest of honour if you wish. Foresight is at the heart of the Government?s policies on business competitiveness. Through Foresight, people from business, academia, government and the voluntary sector are brought together, to build bridges across all areas and activities, and to pursue shared goals. The programme actively seeks to engage business sectors that have traditionally had little or no history of working with the science base - such as banking and insurance. And it promotes collaboration between competitors. For example, one project to come out of Foresight has brought together 24 of the world?s leading mobile telecommunications companies and four UK universities. They undertake collaborative research that benefits them all. The power of Foresight is illustrated by the fact that for every £1 invested, it is estimated that a member company gains access to £40 of high-quality research. You will hear shortly from Pfizer and Hewlett Packard, two of the leading companies that continue to develop new products here in the knowledge they will enhance corporate competitiveness globally and please the shareholders at home. It is no accident that both are active participants in the Foresight programme. But there is no point having all this investment today if we cannot sustain it tomorrow. We must create a society that is familiar with the tools of the information age. That is why as part of the £19bn that is being invested in the education system DfEE have announced a programme to equip all schools with computers - the children of today are the skilled technicians of tomorrow. The National Grid for Learning launched earlier this month by the Prime Minister will involve an investment of £700m in information and communications technology for schools across the UK. This investment is one of the largest by any government anywhere in the world, and is part of a strategy named "Open for Learning, Open for Business". I could not think of a more suitable summary of this Government?s approach to the knowledge driven economy of the future. This investment will help to underpin the future prosperity of Britain as a nation, and as an attractive location for the inward investors of the future. But we cannot wait until the workforce of the future grows up. Education and training are also essential to creating a workforce that can exploit the opportunities of the knowledge-driven economy now. But if partnership and education are key components of the knowledge driven economy, the catalyst is an enterprising culture. I travelled to the United States last month, and I came away enthused by the culture I saw, experienced and heard about. They have a business environment that rewards risk, does not unduly penalise failure, and above all lauds ambition. Some key lessons need to be learned to recreate that business environment here. Too many entrepreneurs in Britain may have the most innovative products and still find it infuriatingly difficult to obtain capital. And if they do, they may get only one chance to succeed. Failure may well win them little sympathy and no further support. What a waste! We still don?t have a venture capital market in the UK that matches our talent for innovation. There are exceptions, of course, and I cannot speak highly enough of funds such as Amadeus and Gateway which have bucked the trend and promise much for the future. But I want to foster a real climate of enterprise in the UK. In his recent pre-Budget statement, Gordon Brown outlined a number of new measures to support enterprise. They include proposals for possible tax credits for smaller firms investing in R&D and plans for up to eight Institutes for Enterprise in British universities. These will bring entrepreneurship training and business skills into the teaching of science and engineering and provide centres of excellence for the process of technology transfer. My white paper next month will take the story on, setting out a range of policies to encourage business to become truly innovative and enterprising. And we also need to encourage all companies to learn from the best that we have. The recent McKinsey report showed that overall British productivity lags behind our major competitors. Yet the productivity of foreign-owned operations in the UK, with few exceptions, tends to equal the world?s best.
And all too often they see their foreign-owned rivals moving ahead using that same research. If Britain is going to compete internationally, we must all realise that the knowledge-driven economy is already here. We must all recognise that machinery is run by silicon rather than muscle, and that imagination and innovation has replaced mindless repetition. Today?s technological advances would have appeared breathtaking just a few years ago and we are committed to building on the skills and training needed to match such achievements in the future. New generations of products rely on innovation based on the use of knowledge. The ability to see opportunity, the vision that creates innovation, the focus that can actually deliver the new products and processes, is driving this technological world of ours forward. Vision, innovation, scientific enterprise. That is what this evening is all about. I am delighted that the investors among you have chosen to be a part of what I see as an exciting future for Britain. And I am equally delighted that the scientists among you are here to tell them how right they were to invest here. |
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Jul 1998 - Dec 1998)
(the following are available from the archive) |
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