I have helped develop a few national strategies hile working at UK Research and Innovation, Digital Catapult and in various advisory roles. I have also been on the other side, and on occasions celebrating interventions in my or my clients’ areas of business.
So, here are some thoughts.
👏 What I like:
- At last there is an industrial strategy! “Any strategy is better than no strategy”, as they say
- it’s relatively long term
- it tries to use many government levers, in addition to R&D spend
- there is reasonable separation between R&D (risky, long term impact), and medium to short term measures
- there is investment
- there is much needed focus on capacity building
- there is effort to measure impact and effects
- and more …
All in all, it’s **great news** and kudos to the ministers and all who contributed to it.
⚠️ What I am cautious about: - it’s an awful lot coming to industry in one go, lots of schemes, many new
- delivering all this will not be easy, and delivery and details do matter
- growth is about more business investment and productivity – are the right levers used fully? Are handbrakes being pulled somewhere else?
- lots of government R&D spend can crowd out business investment – even if just by waiting for the next competition or big government tender – how can we ensure this does not happen?
- capacity built with taxpayer money (e.g. quantum, AI) is being snapped up by foreign private investors – and that’s perhaps OK; but how can we keep more of it and scale it in the UK?
- on AI: the time is ripe; however, 80% of industry projects in AI fail to deliver right now – how can we ensure the government does better for itself and us citizens?
