Horizon: Priming ‘Plan B’

The UK scientific community is preparing itself for the brave new world that is life outside of the EU’s flagship R&D programme Horizon. With limited progress made between Britain and the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol – widely considered the first political hurdle on the road back into Horizon – the narrative has begun to shift to ‘Plan B’ and in what terms Britain will define itself as a science superpower in the future.

The early signs of what that might look like were apparent in the content of George Freeman’s speech to the centre-right think tank Onward earlier this month where he summarised the outlook of British science post-Brexit. While the UK science minister was keen to stress the importance of bilateral projects with the likes of Switzerland, Japan and Israel, the speech outlined the need for realism and a recalibration of the specific research challenges that the UK can lead on internationally without the budgetary might of an EU, US or China behind it.

If the UK is to successfully reframe its ambitions when it comes to growth industries like life sciences, optimising the domestic ecosystem on which the sector is dependent is key.

Funding is arguably the area in which we are best prepared. The UK has long been an attractive place for investment and the weakened pound has only enhanced the ability of international funds to generate returns. We recently received a clearer indication of how the government intends to distribute funding in the future, with vaccine Tsar Kate Bingham’s venture capital fund tasked with seeding a significant chunk of the government’s £200m life sciences programme. The programme is being jointly funded by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, and the decision to route it through an experienced private sector investor rather than solely through the public sector would appear a likely template for the future.

It’s critical though that we gear the system to make the best use of any investment – be it derived from Europe, the Middle East or elsewhere. This is particularly the case in the regions and the North, where foreign direct investment has grown by 72% in the past five years (comparatively, FDI into Greater London fell by 23% during the same time period).

The regions’ academic institutions are a clear strength and a priority must be to ensure that we create effective bridges between them and the private sector. Another venture capital firm, Air Street Capital, recently estimated that of the £24 billion raised by British technology companies in 2022, less than 5% was invested into businesses that emerged from our universities. Further, only a small fraction of this went to recently formed university “spin-out” companies.

It’s well-documented that the Technology Transfer Office – the system by which founders negotiate the equity split of their spin-out – is often skewed in favour of universities; acting as a potential blocker for innovative businesses to be formed. So, while universities are integral to R&D, knowledge transfer will be a key area for refining how Britain approaches innovation as part of Plan B.

One way in which we can facilitate innovation for the benefit of all concerned is using these centres of excellence to solve strategic local problems, while giving founders the platform and support to build a high-growth company. My employer Bruntwood SciTech, for example, is delivering an accelerator programme in conjunction with universities in the West Midlands to use tech to solve a series of challenges set by the local Combined Authority in areas ranging from transport and connectivity to adult social care.

By working in tandem, and giving the universities access to private sector funding networks, facilities and technical support, we can incubate these businesses more effectively and ultimately stimulate growth at a local and national level.

Plan B may not be as easy as Plan A but it can be successful.

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