A new Government: a new regulatory landscape? How the next Parliament can transform the UK's innovation ecosystem
Making Innovation Matter: DSIT Research Paper Number 2023/009, April 2023

A new Government: a new regulatory landscape? How the next Parliament can transform the UK's innovation ecosystem

This article is the personal view of Lucy Mason and does not represent Capgemini or the Regulatory Horizons Council

A new Government – of whatever colour – is always an exciting fresh start. It’s a chance to rethink, set new direction and introduce innovative thinking. But any government has only a small window of opportunity to make changes and land them before becoming bogged down in ‘events’. So any new government has to decide quickly what direction it’s best to pursue, and go after it with single-minded determination and strong leadership, backed by finance. Momentum wears off quickly.

So, in July, what should a new government do? One big disadvantage is that politics (and even the civil service) generally is fairly weak on people who know how to ‘get things done’. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed with the huge range of areas demanding immediate and urgent attention – that is why governments are traditionally bad at long term thinking. So there is a reliance on the kind of people who have connections, a ‘voice’, and who speak with passion and conviction that they know how to make something happen – people whose energy and enthusiasm may mask a lack of experience and skills. And the trouble with that is twofold: the promotion of bullshitters and the overconfident over the quiet but competent people; and the lack of diversity that such ‘personal connections’ and trust usually entails. Real change (and leadership) entails bringing stakeholders along with them, and in nearly any complex policy area that is very difficult. Simple answers are, unsurprisingly, hard to come by, and anyone who claims to have one should be greeted with scepticism. (However, too much scepticism kills transformative change).

So it is with complete honesty, and acknowledging the irony, that the rest of this article purports to prescribe a plan for a new government. Why is this plan any different or better than anyone else’s? What evidence do I have that this would work?

My particular areas of interest lie in innovation, science and technology (in the broadest possible sense and definitely including the arts and humanities), the emerging space sector and the race to deliver benefits through AI which outweighs the risks. So – while not wanting to ignore the pressing problems of health, climate change, energy security, cost of living, ageing population and the growing geopolitical threats – I am focusing on science and technology policy (which, I would argue, helps solve the aforementioned pressing challenges).

The Royal Society and British Academy with the Foundation for Science and Technology convened a Science and Technology hustings for the major political parties this week, which was an excellent event highlighting how much similarity there is in intent. Nearly everyone agrees (though maybe the room was preaching to the converted) that science and technology is a Good Thing for the UK, for prosperity, for increasing human knowledge, and for the UK’s reputation and standing globally (the much-lauded ‘soft power’ of science diplomacy). Everyone agreed that maintain the skills base is key; that international collaborations are desirable; that supporting closer partnerships between university and industry R&D is desirable to help knowledge transfer. We can all point to many success stories in the UK’s past where we have led the world in cutting edge science. To question any of this dogma is anathema.

So is everything that could be done, already being done? How can we parse good from bad? Are there any big transformative changes, or quick wins, that can be made, and how do we avoid the downsides of change – uncertainty, fear, cynicism, resistance – outweighing any potential benefits? As ever, opinions vary, but everyone seems very certain. (A bit unscientific, perhaps?).

Several of the manifestos highlight the importance of data and digital services (to meet growing demand more cheaply), the need to drive innovation for prosperity (building businesses) and to cut back on bureaucracy (getting to profit faster). Governments have had the opportunity to deliver in these areas for a decade or more. Is it just that hard to deliver, or are we not doing enough? Well, both. And the emphasis is notably across all these aims, on generating money rather than spending it. Spending money is indeed hard to come by, but science and technology have, traditionally, been a long-term ‘invest to save’ proposition. Research and development are what you spend money on, for many reasons, only one of which is the potential for yielding some longer-term profits. Innovation, by its nature, often fails, because it deals in unknowns. This is also why growth-by-business-case fails.

One of the investment trade-off choices is where to place bets: how to split budgets between longer-term research as compared to higher TRL scaling and ‘pull through’ activities; and in achieving specific goals (‘missions’) in specific sectors, as compared to general and broad funding with no particular aim in mind at the outset in sectors as broadly cross-cutting and fundamental as ‘quantum sciences’, ‘engineering biology’ or ‘telecommunications’. Of course, all these options are desirable, and necessary; but not affordable. The risks of trying to do it all is to do none of it well, or at sufficient scale, to shift the dial. Too much fundamental research leads nowhere, even when the ideas are good. I would argue this spread-betting-but-with-insufficient-investment approach has been one of the major constraints preventing us from achieving a few things, well. So I would call for rebalancing budgets more towards scaling and adoption, making better use of all the fundamental science we have already invested in rather than generating more, and removing spending constraints which separate spending on R&D from adoption and high TRL testing, evaluation and procurement of capabilities. We need more R&D to be done with routes for exploitation, including the (much larger) budgets needed for scaling and adoption, already agreed at least in principle.

Step 1 of my ‘recipe’ is to create a cross-Government Innovation Portfolio by identifying a few key areas where the UK is really going to make a difference and focus resources and effort on achieving SMART goals (‘Missions’) over realistic but ambitious timescales. Which ‘winners’ shall we pick? Everyone has a view, and not everyone is going to get their way: but far better to decide some winners and losers and crack on with it. Parts of government also need to accept that their role goes beyond setting the conditions and early-stage R&D funding – the ‘market’ is not going to deliver on the big complex challenges we need as a society. So governments need to be more interventionist, with a ‘whole of Government’ joined-up approach as both a driver and first adopter of innovative British products and services, and perhaps through novel funding models such as warrants to ensure success benefits the public purse.

Technology is usually not the problem: often innovation fails as a result of other factors which are behavioural, economic or social, which hinder the diffusion and adoption of innovative ideas, as the BEST Model for Innovation adoption and diffusion illustrates (see picture).

So Step 2 is to take a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to addressing the barriers preventing us from achieving the Missions identified in Step 1 including drawing on behavioural and social sciences to test, evaluate and implement measures, and ensuring diversity and equity are key. Making it easier, and more rewarding, to collaborate than to not would help leverage cross-sector and cross-disciplinary expertise: government could make hybrid industry-government-academic teams the norm, building collaboration and trust with flexible standard contracts. Where a brilliant team is formed and does great work together, they need to be invested in and kept together with sustained funding – like VCs, governments need to invest in people.

And that leads us onto regulatory policy. Regulation is often cited as a barrier to innovation: but in fact, good and timely regulatory policy can enable innovation. Step 3 is to create iterative regulatory approaches to emerging technologies which provides clarity and certainty for innovators and investors, and build public confidence, while addressing the most severe risks of harm. Regulation (including advice, self-regulation, guidance, standards and law) should be minimal, appropriate, specific and pragmatic, and ensure the benefits of acting are properly recognised and balanced against the risks. Having in place systems – perhaps, independent councils, and/or Citizens Assemblies – which allow these balances to be struck more quickly and effectively would turbo-charge rapid innovation in all sorts of sectors where currently uncertainty and ‘it’s too difficult’ kills off transformative change.

What is needed is a government which is not afraid to make hard choices, to disappoint and upset some people, and to focus relentlessly on achieving a few key things in the right way. This is the time to do just that.

I agree with all you say Lucy Mason and if you look at AI as just one example the Tory Manifesto mentions Atificial Intelligence once and defines the term as AI and uses it 5 more times in a limited way. The Labour Party mentions Atificial Intelligence once and also defines the term as AI and then uses AI zero more times so why even define it ! I love your observation of “bullshitters and over confident people” Lucy and that over confidence is even an emerging risk in AI tools like Chat GPT-4o in that the over confident replies presented in very professional scientific ways are exactly what you described which is bullshit or hallucinations as they like to refer to it. So much you cover is right and even though this needs cross party support your term of whole of government to whole of socoety is a correct point IMHO about citizen assemblies also means we have to have the voice of the people at the table as well. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. I would also suggest that team you describe has to be superlative and it has to be hand selected to get the best we can pull together from all parts of the U.K. to see effective collaboration and cooperation emerge. This is a great article Lucy and good on your for shaking the tree.

要查看或添加评论,请登录

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了