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Innovating for the future
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09/04/2008
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Iain Gray, the first chief executive of the new-look Technology Strategy Board, tells Lou Reade how the organisation will help to stimulate innovation in the UK
Innovation is currently riding high on the Government’s agenda – right up there with the credit crunch. But while financial meltdown is the one to avoid, innovation is being embraced – and is even the subject of a White Paper.
‘Innovation Nation’ is the snappily titled tome that lays out a roadmap for innovation in the UK. Previous plans have come and gone, yet the UK still has vital skills gaps and is still less productive than its major competitors. Why should things be any different this time? One factor could be an organisation that sounds more like a high street bank than a technology leader.
The TSB (Technology Strategy Board, to use its full name) is charged with ‘stimulating technology-enabled innovation in the areas that offer the greatest scope for boosting UK growth and productivity”. In order to do this, it has taken a radical step – and moved away from Government. It has a new business focus and now sits “at arm’s length from Government”. It has moved to Swindon, been almost completely re-staffed and has its first chief executive – flown in direct from industry.
Iain Gray comes to TSB with an impressive pedigree: with a background in mechanical engineering, he later became managing director of Airbus UK – and led development of the A380. Few high-flying aerospace executives swap their job for one as the head of a quango: so why did he do it?
“I could see Government thinking moving away from the old sectoral type approach, towards innovation,” he told Eureka. “To me, TSB was just an advisory body, with little in the way of teeth in front of Government. It certainly had no accountability.”
Then, he says, two things happened that “endorsed the Government’s commitment to TSB”: one was the outcome of the spending review, where it saw a sizeable increase in funding (its budget is currently around £200m per year, while the Comprehensive Spending Review allocated £1bn over the next three years, including Research Council and Regional Development Agency contributions); the second was the Sainsbury Report (‘Race to the Top’, published last October). The report made 72 recommendations on how to maintain the UK’s position in innovation and R&D – and half of them mentioned the TSB.
“That’s when I made my mind up,” he says.
The TSB now finds itself in an enviable position: once, as Gray says, little more than an advisory board, it will now carry out the Government’s bidding to make UK plc more innovative.
“The fact that we’re at arm’s length allows an element of managed risk,” he says. “It lets us do things differently: we’ve taken away some of the bureaucracy of putting bids together, for example.”
And for the future, he sees a shift in the way that research is funded and encouraged.
“I’d expect to see our strategy move towards a challenge-led approach, rather than the traditional technology-push,” he says.
This turns traditional research funding on its head. While the Government will continue to fund specific areas of science and technology – nanotechnology, for example – the new approach is designed “to address major policy and societal changes” and stimulate research within those areas.
“With these Innovation Platforms, we take a societal challenge involving other departments and develop a new framework where there might be underpinning technology,” says Gray.
An example is assisted living, which will develop technologies to help elderly people become more independent.
“Rather than us being prescriptive in setting ‘our’ technology needs, we lay down the challenge – and get business to come up with solutions,” says Gray.
Other Innovation Platforms are: intelligent transport systems; network securities; low carbon vehicles; and low impact buildings.
“Innovation is about embodying ideas from around the community and being prepared to do things differently – and get results,” he says.
More to come
The new business focus of TSB – the majority of its new employees have come “from business” – means it is likely to apply market principles to everything under its control.
An example could be with the Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs). There are 23 of these technology-focused organisations, covering subjects such as materials, electronics, chemistry and food processing.
“Some are very vertical and aligned to a particular sector, while others are quite horizontal,” says Gray. “Some are performing very well and some have room for improvement. Now is an opportune time to work with them to identify how we can improve – are there gaps, for example, or is there duplication?”
KTNs are not the only part of TSB’s armoury: it can also spend its budget through a range of other ways – be it collaborative research, knowledge transfer partnerships or identifying emerging technologies.
“Business must understand how these things link together,” says Gray. “They were previously seen as quite fragmented: it’s our job to provide a level of coherence and transparency in terms of how they fit together.”
Part of the impetus for all this is to compete internationally – not just with the UK traditional rivals, but emerging nations such as China and India – whose manufacturing strength is threatening our own.
“We must react to the changing manufacturing landscape,” says Gray. “We need to accelerate towards high value products, processes and services.”
He said that support for ‘high value’ manufacturing has been done through collaborative R&D calls – including a £15m call in December.
‘High value manufacturing’ was one of eight areas of collaborative R&D that were announced between November and March. The others include: materials for energy; low carbon energy technologies; and technologies for health.
“But ultimately it’s not manufacturing that we’re selling – it’s products. That’s what we are aiming at.”
Gray is fond of quoting the achievements of Bristol-based OC Robotics, which he sees as a prime example of the type of organisation that TSB is trying to encourage.
“The company received a TSB grant to develop its ‘snaking robots’,” he says. “These give access to very different locations – and could have a big future in defence to medical applications.”
The new TSB will ultimately be judged on whether it can engage with the research community and bring the best out of it.
“In the past, the approach was to launch large, long-term programmes which then ran their course – whether or not they were successful,” he says. “In industry, it’s about experimentation. We may get involved in smaller feasibility studies and start to identify which ones we invest in – and which ones we stop. It’s a different mindset.”
And he sees the TSB’s role as a facilitator of that.
“The whole thrust of the Sainsbury report was that the UK is a world leader in science and research,” he says. “TSB is about the actions we need to take to keep world leading companies as that – and to grow the next generation.”
Innovation Converence
The future of innovation in the UK – especially as it is applied to manufacturing and engineering – will be covered in detail at the forthcoming Innovation Conference.
Allyson Reed, director of strategy at the TSB, is the keynote speaker. Her presentation, ‘Innovating for UK plc’ will address talk about the TSB’s mission and about innovation priorities in the UK – which have been brought into sharp focus with the publication of the ‘Innovation Nation’ White Paper by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).
Other key speakers at the event include: Paul John, director of technology at e2v, who will explain the ethos of an innovative organisation; Rick Mitchell of Cranfield Universtity, on creating an innovative organisation; and winners of Innovation & Design Excellence Awards in 2007, who will reveal aspects of the innovative organisation.
There will also be two special workshops on innovative design techniques, and the chance to question iDEA judges Lou Reade and Marek Szwejczewski, on the mechanics of entering – and winning – an award.
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Author
Tom Shelley
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