Last week’s autumn statement confirmed strong continued support for research and innovation.
Innovate UK’s support for business growth, scale up and research commercialisation forms a key element of that. With responsibility for £2.6 billion for core innovation over the spending review period and over £3 billion for managed programmes activity.
The Innovate UK programmes span many areas across the key domains of:
- net zero
- healthy living and agriculture
- digital and technologies
The programmes include a strong focus on place-based innovation, design, and support for the development of talent and skills.
The role of the Catapults
The Innovate UK funded Catapults play a vital role in business growth and commercialisation. They provide UK businesses with access to expertise and facilities, where they can test, develop, and demonstrate new technologies and systems, before taking them to market.
The autumn statement confirmed a 35% increase in Innovate UK support for Catapults over the next 5 years, a total of £1.6 billion. This is based on Innovate UK developing a bold and ambitious new deal with and for Catapults, driving even greater impact, focus, and private sector leverage across their UK-wide activity.
Commenting on this, Innovate UK CEO, Indro Mukerjee said:
Innovate UK recognises the importance of the Catapults within our system to support new growth and productivity for the UK. They have many talented people, state of the art equipment and some bold ideas.
We worked hard to secure an increased commitment and intend to use that to deliver greater impact and improved efficiency.
Indro Mukerjee, CEO Innovate UK meeting the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult CEO Andrew Jamieson and being given a tour of the facilities.
Credit: Innovate UK
Further information
You can go to the Catapult website
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Top image: Credit: Nikolay Pandev, iStock via Getty Images
As Innovate UK’s Director for Innovation Ecosystem, David oversees Catapults and agri-tech centres, as well as leading on skills, commercialisation, design, public sector innovation, and regulations. He is also a non-executive director of Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network. Until recently he was responsible for Innovate UK’s local engagement.
Before joining Innovate UK, David had 20 years’ experience in defence research and development (R&D), including overseeing Ministry of Defence’s materials research programme, and was Technical Director for the Ministry of Defence’s Research Acquisition Organisation. He also spent four-years on secondment to the US Department of Defence, coordinating R&D strategies across the US Services and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency .