Innovation Really Matters To Business CBI Tells The Yorkshire Times

Last week’s Praxis Auril conference at Harrogate Convention Centre focused on successful knowledge Transfer Partnerships and collaboration between business and universities.

Speaking exclusively to The Yorkshire Times, Felicity Burch, CBI’s Director of Innovation and Digital, said: “The way businesses are innovating is changing. We are seeing all sorts of different change like more disruptive business models rather than focusing on products and services.

“Companies are using advanced analytics to help to speed up innovation processes and one of the many things this can be seen is in research and development (R&D), so things can be tested much more quickly.

Ms Burch, who leads the business organisation’s policy work to create the conditions that enable businesses to come up with new ideas, invest in research and development (R&D) and adopt new technologies, chaired a panel session on innovation and collaboration between universities and business.

The panel included James Kelly from Uber, Claire Paxolini-Campbell from the National Trust and Clive Blacker Precision Decisions.

The panel discussed one of the big questions about promoting collaboration best practice.

According to Ms Burch there is actually more going on getting business working closely together with universities. The more complex business innovation becomes the more you have to collaborate with other organisations and it’s not just the case in business it is in academia too.

“There are academic papers published in physics now, where you have 1000 authors credited because the level of different ideas you have to bring together to make new discoveries.

"The role that universities can play in supporting businesses is increasing and we want to explore what business innovation looks like today and some of the different models plus what knowledge professionals can do to support business.” Ms Burch said.

The panel also looked at the exciting developments going on in terms of business R&D.

Overall, the levels of R&D in the UK are too low, currently it is 1.7% of GDP compared with the OECD average of 2.4%.

“The government has a target to raise UK R&D expenditure to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and the CBI supports the target. The question is how do we get there? I guess the other question is will the next prime minister continue to support that target and we would strongly argue they should.”

“Our conversations with business so far, really highlight the need for universities to make it as easy as possible to engage, making sure they have a clear front door for businesses to come through. They also need to be proactive in engaging businesses especially SMEs.” Ms Burch added.

Looking at the what government can do, Ms Burch commented: “The role of government here is helping to support business. There are some really good schemes that exist such as Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and it is important to make sure businesses are aware of these.

“We have called upon Innovate UK to simplify and streamline their support so businesses can access it easily and, for government more generally, to increase funding that is available, so that success rates for applications can increase and move the dial to 2.4%"

{similiar} According to the CBI businesses will say that over the past 10 years the profile and engagement has improved mainly because of government support available and partly because inclusion of Impact in the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Universities are measured on the extent they have impact in their communities and the economy.

“I think it’s important for universities to understand what is happening in the business community. There are some really good ideas coming out of business that can inspire research and engage students. One great example is the Leeds University Nexus Centre. The CBI partnered with them on our research into the changing nature of UK R&D. The whole point of that centre is to be a wide open front door for business and showcase what the university can offer. Plenty of other universities are doing similar projects.

"It is making it clear to businesses that they matter as part of the R&D strategy and you do want to engage with them and giving academics opportunities to do that as well,” Ms Burch concluded.