In the UK's first annual innovation report, published on 4 December 2008, Ministers underlined the vital role innovation has to play in securing the country's long term prosperity.  The Annual Innovation Report outlines progress made on innovation to help transform public services and ensure UK businesses benefit from the £175billion spent annually through Government procurement. The Report also announces the Government's progress on delivering the commitments first outlined in the Sainsbury Review and taken forward in the Innovation Nation White Paper.  Key achievements include:

• A commitment from every Government Department to use their procurement budget to encourage innovation in business. Today guidance has been published to prepare these departmental Innovation Procurement Plans (IPP).
• A new pilot programme to ensure UK businesses benefit from the specialist expertise of further education colleges to make business more innovative and enable them to move into new markets. 
•  Improvement in the UK's innovation performance: The proportion of innovative businesses has increased from 49% in 2001 to 68% in 2007; spending by business and Government on R&D increased by 4% in real terms to £23.2billion in 2006; the number of degree level qualifiers has increased by 36,220 and doctorate qualifiers by 2,632 between 2003 and 2007.

The UK Government announced a £5m Innovation Research Centre, which will conduct research to assist Government and businesses to meet current challenges including the economic downturn and climate change.  The centre will be funded by DIUS, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). The funding partners will contribute a total of £5m over five years. The centre is expected to commence work in January 2009.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) also launched a competition to promote the use of the Forward Commitment Procurement (FCP) model across the public sector. This will support public sector organisations to use FCP to encourage the development of innovative solutions that will improve sustainability.

The UK's First Annual Innovation Report delivers on a recommendation first set out by Lord Sainsbury in his 2007 review, 'Race to the Top'.  It underlines UK government commitment to put innovation at the heart of its strategy, and to ensure the spread of good practice across government departments and Regional Development Agencies.  Lord Drayson, UK Minister of State for Science and Innovation, underlined that the report represented a picture of a nation that is both good at innovation and getting better at it. However he also stressed the need to maintain this progress to cope with the economic downturn and to emerge stronger from it.

Further Information

Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) http://www.dius.gov.uk
Annual Innovation Report http://www.dius.gov.uk/policy/annual_innovation_report.html
Innovation Research Centre: http://www.esrc.ac.uk

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