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“Innovation vouchers” floated for small companies |
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Monday, 11 June 2007 |
Scotland’s many small and medium-sized businesses could be given free “innovation vouchers” by the state in order to spur demand for university and college R&D, according to a leading business and higher education expert.
Dr Chris Masters, former chair of the Scottish Higher Education Funding
Council and former executive chairman of Aggreko, floated the idea as a
potential solution to the abysmal rate of commercial research and
development in Scotland.
Previously in Scotland, the focus has tended to be on pushing
universities and colleges to commercialise and produce spin-off
companies. Masters argued that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with
the supply side in Scotland, but that the problem is how to boost
demand.
“It’s rather like if you have a factory making Mars Bars, and nobody is
buying them, so you double the size of the factory… The fundamental
problem is that businesses in Scotland are not spending money on
research.”
Masters said that some concerns had been raised that such plans could
fall foul of EU competition laws, by effectively subsidising Scottish
businesses. However, he pointed out that the Dutch government had been
running a similar scheme since 2004.
He stressed that such a proposal should be designed to be free of
paperwork so that it would not impose additional bureaucratic burdens
on businesses, and said that businesses should not be obliged to spend
such vouchers.
Universities Scotland director David Caldwell said that such an idea
should be welcomed. “Everyone knows that Scotland has far too low a
level of research and development in its indigenous companies and that
the problem is a particularly difficult one to solve for small
businesses.
“Universities have been trying to create new ways for small businesses
to work with them to make it easier to access the world-class research
and development they do. But the push coming from universities has to
be matched by a pull coming from business.
“Any imaginative ideas for how we can stimulate that pull effect should be considered very seriously.”
Niall Stuart of the Federation of Small Businesses said that Masters
was “right to say that it is disappointing that so few small firms are
managing to capitalise on the huge research base in our universities”.
He said that if this idea could get more SMEs engaging with the higher
education sector, then it had to be worth looking at. “But I think we
have to be realistic and acknowledge that it will inevitably take time
to create a more enterprising attitude in the university sector and to
create a broad base of SMEs with the capability to commercialise
cutting-edge ideas and techniques.
“We also need to look at how we can reward academics for taking more
risks and time out from purely academic research, because at the
moment, their whole careers are made or broken on their contribution to
their department’s rating in the Research Assessment Exercise.”
Liz Cameron, executive director of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce,
said that the proposal was an “interesting” one, and that it was
essential that the business and academic communities work together to
boost the future delivery of Scotland’s R&D.
“It is welcome that the proposal recognises the positive benefits of an
administration-free service, and it is crucial that it identifies the
need for business to drive the agenda in terms of identifying
opportunities in the marketplace.
“We should, however, take note and learn from other countries where
similar voucher schemes have been tried but with limited success.
Unless SMEs feel genuinely engaged in the R&D culture, then
vouchers may remain unspent, and we end up back where we started.”
Cameron stressed that the Scottish Chambers of Commerce did welcome
this contribution to the debate, but warned that ultimately, a broad
range of measures would be needed in order to “facilitate a culture
change in the approach to research and development in Scotland”.
“Greater buy-in from SMEs is needed, but any voucher scheme could only
work as part of a broader portfolio of measures with government
commitment to revitalizing the potential for university spin-outs, and
[the possibility of] reducing the tax burden on those companies who can
show that they are investing in this area.”
Jeremy Peat, director of economic think-tank the David Hume Institute,
also broadly welcomed the idea: “I believe that one of the biggest
problems of the Scottish economy is the lack of innovation and research
within Scottish business. This comes despite the success of Scottish
universities.
“Dr Chris Masters’ plan suggests one way in which business could be
encouraged to make better use of the capabilities that exists within
universities, and clearly merits greater consideration.”
No one has commented on this article.
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