Brief: Innovation policy encompasses more than services


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Hetan Shah advocates broader support for “social sciences” sectors with tax credits for research and development (Opinion, FT.com, June 26), but notes that a strategy needs to reflect reality: “We are not Germany. . . 80 percent of the UK economy is services. “

That’s the point. The purpose of an industrial strategy is not to pat the financial and legal sectors on the back a decade after the global crash, but to see how we react to the greatest opportunities and threats facing our country and economy, and then about change. Politics is about choosing how resources are allocated. The pandemic has brought this into focus as food supplies depend on tinplate lines in south Wales and beds in Nightingale hospitals made from steel from Corby’s pipe mills.

Adjusting innovation policies to support “social sciences, humanities, arts for people and business”, as important as they are, will not make key UK infrastructure more resilient to global supply shocks from critical materials, international trade wars or increased security concerns.

Globalized economies like the UK face an unprecedented challenge to accelerate decarbonization, maximize the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution and respond to changing geopolitical power while protecting sovereign security.

By prioritizing innovations from our industrialists and engineers, we will protect our climate, our supply chains and our coasts.

Chris McDonald
managing Director
Institute for Material Processing
Middlesbrough, UK

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