APPG for Entrepreneurship Digest: August 2023

Entrepreneurs have never had a straightforward relationship with universities. Famously, a string of trailblazing founders dropped out of their institutions early to pursue their business dreams, while many others didn’t even bother attending in the first place.

Yet this isn’t to say higher education can’t be a gateway to success. Quite the opposite. It’s at university where many budding entrepreneurs get their first taste of real independence, begin mixing with new networks, and start devising companies of their own. For those striking out in specialist fields at the bleeding edge of innovation, university is often a prerequisite – you can’t generally run groundbreaking experiments without a lab in which to do them.

The upshot of all of this is that successful entrepreneurship policy is closely enmeshed with successful academic policy. I read with interest, therefore, a new policy proposal from the think tank Onward in a report they released recently. They call on the Government to give the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology responsibility for universities, rather than the Department for Education, as is the case currently. Onward argue that transferring responsibility would bring a number of benefits, including “more effective coordination of resources,” better support for “university-based incubators and accelerators by aligning their efforts with DSIT’s responsibility for commercialisation,” and ensuring that “university courses reflect the Government’s long-term science and technology objectives and cultivates skills that align with industry demands.” I recommend you read the paper in full – as it also makes a series of other recommendations for boosting innovation in the UK.

And it turns out that they’re not the only ones producing new ideas in this space either. The Entrepreneurs Network, the APPG for Entrepreneurship’s Secretariat, also published a short paper containing their thoughts on how to better unlock the UK’s spinout potential. (Disclaimer – I helped write this one.) Having consulted the literature on different models for commercialising academic research, the authors recommend the UK follows the lead of Sweden, and adopts the model known as “Professor’s Privilege” – whereby individual academics, rather than the institutions to which they belong, own the intellectual property they create in the course of their work. Evidence seems to suggest that this leads to higher rates of academic entrepreneurship and innovation.

For what it’s worth, here at the APPG for Entrepreneurship we’ve had a longstanding interest of our own in the ties – and, sometimes, the tension – between universities and entrepreneurship. In 2018, we published Enterprise Education, which made the case for imbuing students with the necessary enterprising skills to flourish in the twenty-first century. Among the recommendations it proposed were calls to reform the Teaching Excellence Framework so that universities aren’t punished when students drop out if it’s to set up a business – something which we think should be a mark of success, not failure.

Britain boasts a number of the world’s most prestigious universities. From them come some of the world’s most innovative entrepreneurs. Yet no country stays dynamic for long if it starts resting on its laurels. Thankfully, Britain doesn’t seem to suffer any lack of ideas on how to keep that from happening either.

Adviser Update

Next month on the 6th September, The Entrepreneurs Network will be hosting a reception in the House of Lords to celebrate the launch of their forthcoming report in partnership with the Association of Business Executives (ABE), which makes a positive case for how immigration and student mobility can enhance entrepreneurship, innovation and productivity worldwide. You can find out more by clicking here.

Two things to flag from Global Entrepreneurship Network UK – the first is the chance to apply to win LeZero Innovation Prize 2023, which awards cash and in-kind mentoring to help entrepreneurs get their green mobility, clean energy and smart city solutions on the radar. Click here to apply.

Second, they are also accepting applications for the second cohort of their RESTART Ukraine entrepreneurial programme. As before, this programme is focused on providing support and connections to Ukrainian women entrepreneurs who are seeking to start or grow their businesses. Click here to learn more.

In Parliament

In a debate on artificial intelligence in the House of Lords, Viscount Camrose, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, emphasised that artificial intelligence regulations should address “significant risks caused or amplified by AI” if the public is to trust this technology. He claimed that the Government’s regulatory framework will “articulate what responsible, safe and reliable AI innovation should look like.”

During the same debate, Labour’s Lord Browne described artificial intelligence as an “existential risk” and emphasised that because of this, discussions on artificial intelligence regulation should not be seen as a “a false dichotomy, with regulatory rigour on one side and innovation on the other.” He argued that regulations can benefit artificial intelligence companies, giving them “greater confidence in planning, resourcing and pursuing technological advances.”

Labour’s Lord Bassam, on the other hand, emphasised that innovation in AI is “ being driven by our UK tech start-up and scale-up firms” and described these firms as essential for achieving “sustained economic growth.”

Meanwhile, Lord Bilimoria underlined that if the UK is to lead the world in emerging technologies, it cannot achieve this “by investing 1.7% of GDP in research, development and innovation compared with the 3.1% and 3.2% that America and Germany do.” He suggested that investment in R&D and innovation should increase “by at least 1% of GDP.”

In a House of Commons session on technologies to decarbonise the economy, George Freeman MP, Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation, highlighted that “UK Research and Innovation is investing £800 million annually on research and innovation in net zero, and £210 million through the industrial decarbonisation fund.”

While debating whether the UK will rejoin Horizon Europe, Chloe Smith MP, the then Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said that the Government’s preference was “association” with the European body and that “the talks are continuing constructively, but we have not yet agreed a deal.”