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Every year, the UK spends £21 billion [i] on creating new knowledge – via the science system in universities, research institutes, and companies. This forms part of an estimated £600 billion which is spent by OECD countries around the world, involving some 3 million researchers [ii]. Not surprisingly, every country asks the same question – what are we getting out of this investment? And is it enough?

 

Evidence suggests that the UK is good at producing scientific knowledge. It is ranked second only to the US for academic citations, for example, with an impressive 11.9% world share. The UK also ranks fifth in the world for PhDs produced per unit HERD (Higher Education R&D Spend) -- the US is ranked twelfth.

 

But do we apply the knowledge as effectively as we create it?

The Grand Challenge: Invention to innovation

 

The great challenge of innovation is not simply to create knowledge but to use it in ways that have a positive economic and social impact. Understanding and improving how UK firms do that is the goal of the Innovation and Productivity Grand Challenge -- one of four initiatives funded by the UK research council, the EPSRC.

 

Here the news is mixed.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that the UK is good at invention, but poor at innovation. Famous examples include the body scanner developed by EMI, and pioneering work on the world’s first computer at the British war time code breaking centre Bletchley Park – both of which drew on the UK’s science base but were commercialized elsewhere. But this negative view ignores innovation success stories in areas like pharmaceuticals and aerospace.

 

The fact is that the UK’s innovation from knowledge (IfK) system does work. The question is: can it work better? And can it do so at a time when the innovation model is changing?

 

Open innovation

Today, knowledge is created on a truly international stage. Even major R&D players such as Procter & Gamble now talk of sourcing half or more of their innovations from outside the company. These changes will have a profound impact on IfK systems. Innovation is increasingly about managing flows of knowledge across complex – and often global -- networks.

 

This raises important questions for the future. How does an effective IfK system work in this new environment? Who plays the knowledge networking game well -- and what can we learn from them to deploy a best practice model across our systems? Do we need to create new ways of helping the flow of knowledge – through better linkages, bridges and brokers?

 

These are just some the questions the Grand Challenge researchers are seeking to 
answer. They are big questions, requiring big responses. The team is approaching 
them with its own unique knowledge system: a network of five major universities --
Cambridge, Liverpool  Loughborough, Cranfield and Imperial College -- and the 
Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM), which has links to other UK and 
international researchers.

[i] Figs from Office of National Statistics

[ii] Fig from National Science Foundation
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