21 February 2005

Video Speech by the Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer to the ‘Competing In The Global Economy’ - Science And Innovation Conference

Because of my visit to China, I am sorry not to be able to be with you in person today at this hugely important conference to celebrate British science.

I am delighted this conference is here in Manchester, the centre of the first industrial revolution.

Here in Manchester University where Rutherford began his work splitting the atom.

Here, where the world’s first computer was built, the home of 23 Nobel prize winners over time, and now - with 90,000 students and high quality research institutions - leading as a science city in Britain and Europe.

Three Nobel prizes for science last year remind us that even now Britain has more Nobel prize winners in science than any country except America. 

With 1 per cent of the world’s population we have over 11 per cent of the world’s most cited scientific papers.

And I believe we are now - more than at any time since the first decades of the industrial revolution - turning our scientific genius into successful technology led economic growth for Britain.

It may surprise some people outside this conference to know that today, a higher share of our growth is delivered by science-based innovations than in any other industrial nation including the United States of America.  And it may also surprise some people outside this conference that Britain has the highest share of research and development coming from all over the world than any of our major competitors.

And in the last few weeks alone:

  • UK space scientists played a central role in analysing images sent back from Saturn’s largest moon;
  • We have launched a major joint research programme with Japan to tackle the long term threat from climate change;
  • And Britain’s Ordnance Survey provided eight highly specialist receivers to Sri Lanka, following the tsunami, to help map out the worst hit areas to aid vital work in rebuilding and construction.

It is upon these British strengths in science that we must build to equip our country for the future.

Because in the new global economy no country can take its future prosperity for granted. 

Nations will rise and fall depending on their willingness and their capacity to face up to the difficult long-term decisions about the future. 

And as global restructuring continues apace - focusing advanced industrial nations away from low skill, low tech products and processes to the technology driven and high value added - Britain will only have a competitive edge if we develop world leadership in the most technologically intensive and science based industries and services. 

Faced with these challenges, the long-term choice Britain cannot duck is whether we have the strength to take all the necessary steps - financial, regulatory and cultural - to make Britain the country where scientific invention is fully valued and celebrated and the best place in the world for scientific enquiry and for R&D. 

As many of you will know, we have already set out - in last summer’s Spending Review - our 10 year plan for science with a new and stretching target to increase UK investment in private and public sector R&D from 1.9 per cent of national income to 2.5 per cent in ten years’ time – that would make us among the best of our competitors. 

To support this ambition - building on the significant increases in science investment in the last two Spending Reviews – total government funding for science will rise by over £1 billion to £5 billion a year by 2008 – double what it was in 1997.

Our R&D tax credits are providing a £600 million incentive for business investment in innovation - as we strive to make them the best incentives for R&D in the world. 

And through the Higher Education Innovation Fund, a new Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship and the removal of tax barriers to the formation of university spin off companies, we are encouraging academic researchers to become more entrepreneurial and boosting technology transfer between universities and business.

But I know that we need to do more.

Measures I will announce in the Budget will reinforce our determination that our incentives to attract R&D are the world’s best, our universities are world class, and we should aim to lead the world in strengthening the links between higher education and the hi-tech firms of the future.

And I can tell you that - more than ever - our investment effort, both for inward and indigenous investment, will focus on encouraging and stimulating creative firms that are high value added, research based, and technology led.
 
Starting with Newcastle, York and Manchester we are developing plans for ‘science cities’. 

And the ten-year framework for the advancement of British science will be constantly updated to meet the new challenges of a rapidly changing world of knowledge.

As part of our commitment to make the UK one of the leading world centres for pharmaceuticals, biotech and the life sciences, the newly created UK Clinical Research Collaboration already embraces the NHS, business and universities.  Our aim is to make the UK the premier location for new research from medical trials to the tracking of results.  And we will also take the necessary steps to become the world’s number one research centre for genetic and stem cell research.

And - so we can value and celebrate science and scientific discovery - I want Britain to lead the world in resolving the controversial issues of genetic research, animal experimentation and GM foods.

World class universities are vital to create ideas, teach skills, and pass both knowledge and skills to society and the economy – and I am delighted that Lord Sainsbury and Richard Lambert are today able to unveil new web-based guidance and ‘model agreements’ to help collaborative working between universities and business and speed up negotiations for intellectual property.

We need business to invest more in R&D and skills, take up new ideas and seize the benefits of university collaboration – and I can tell you that our new industry led science forum - chaired by Sir Tom McKillop of AstraZeneca - will benchmark progress in raising business R&D.

We can be proud that as new British ideas and inventions are turned into new British products and new British exports, that will in turn create new British manufacturing jobs and greater prosperity for Britain.  And we are working with employers to invest in skills to equip our workforce for these future opportunities.

And when we know that some regions invest five times as much in R&D than others, we need the regional development agencies to play their crucial part in encouraging local technology transfer and developing regional clusters of specialisms by putting science and innovation at the heart of their regional economic strategies.

Together we have to rise to the global challenge. 

And my vision is that if all of us - government, universities, business and employees - work together, we can achieve world leadership in science and innovation.

It is to that task that this conference is dedicated.

Ends