The biggest opportunity here arguably lies in supporting the UK’s Science and Technology industries. Britain is already a world leader in terms of research output, yet the sector remains shamefully under-commercialised relative to its peers.
This has an obvious knock-on effect for Science and Technology real estate. While investor sentiment for the sector remains positive, it is hard to shake the feeling that it would be so much better if they had the confidence that the industry has all the tools needed to fulfil its vast potential. Yet the problem is much bigger than real estate; the success of the industry holds the key to driving prosperity in the country at large.
If we are to retain our most attractive companies and attract the world’s leaders in Science and Technology, The Labour Party must do these five things: usher in a more favourable environment that better enables infrastructure and housing provision; create effective ‘research clusters’ to foster further innovation; provide further investment for incubators and start-ups; loosen visa restrictions to better attract talent; and commercialise the NHS’ vast data reserves.
Infrastructure and housing provision
The industry can only thrive with adequate housing and infrastructure provision. At the moment, this is sadly not the case.
The housing crisis works to price out workers of high productivity out of areas of high productivity, such as Oxford, London, and Cambridge. This creates barriers to talent and holds back innovation.
Labour has made the right noises around housing, pledging to restore mandatory targets and open up the green belt for development. However, our research has shown that a stated target to build 1.5 million homes during its first term in parliament would mean the housing crisis would not be fixed for another 40 years.
The target should be raised to 550,000 a year – then we would be on track to make a meaningful dent by 2031. Only with drastically boosted supply can we lower prices and create a better quality of living to make Britain more attractive to high-productivity workers, both those educated within and outside of the UK.
In the realm of infrastructure, Britain is also woefully underserved. The fact it takes around two and a half hours to get to Cambridge from Oxford by train – two of the country’s most significant Science and Technology hubs – is plainly absurd. We need planning laws and public investment that create a favourable environment for productivity-enhancing infrastructure.
Creating effective research clusters
Better infrastructure and housing provision are essential to creating effective research clusters, which is part of the reason why the San Francisco Bay Area is the most productive place in the world.
There, more than anywhere else in the world, institutions and companies are co-located together to facilitate collaboration, which enables smaller research start-ups to tap into the resources and knowledge of larger players in the industry.
Labour should create incentives for bigger companies to create these types of ecosystems - Moderna’s deal with the last Conservative government to develop a 700-acre campus in Oxford, as part of a £3 billion science and infrastructure project, provides a blueprint for what can be achieved in this area.
Loosen Visa restrictions to better attract talent
Access to talent, in addition to costly housing, is also affected by a lengthy and expensive Visa system. The five-year Global Talent Visa costs £20,980, which does not factor in the potential economic uplift associated with accommodating talented individuals from around the world.
Labour must expedite and cheapen Visa processes so that those with qualifications in the Science and Technology industries are better incentivised to move to the UK. We need to be able to attract the best talent in the world to support industry, and our immigration system should better recognise this fact.
Further investment for incubators and start-ups
Investment in incubators that help to commercialise the research outputs of our world-leading universities, as well as early-stage start-ups and scale-ups, is also paramount if we want to make Britain a scientific superpower.
The US’ federal health agency, The National Institute of Health committed $47.5 billion to support its life sciences industry last year, and its budget has increased around 60 percent annually over the last ten. Obviously, the UK cannot match a commitment of this magnitude, but when deployed astutely, smaller amounts of capital can have a tremendous effect.
One case study of this is quantum chipmaker PsiQuantum’s founding of the Quantum Technologies Enterprise Centre in Bristol. Set up specifically to take post-doctoral researchers out of academia and into industries through an entrepreneurship route with just £5 million in government funding in 2016, the centre has gone on to produce a third of all UK quantum computing companies currently in operation - raising over £160 million and creating more than 360 jobs.
Labour has pledged to increase R&D spending by £10 billion, which is a welcome move. But it can also learn from past successes that how you deploy capital can matter as much as the amount of capital you deploy.
Commercialise NHS data
Another area where Labour can play on the UK’s already established strengths is in the realm of NHS data. The NHS’ vast reserves of longitudinal data are coveted by life sciences and technology companies alike.
Having uninterrupted access to this data can allow them to better assess the effectiveness of treatments and impacts on patient outcomes, which in turn facilitates the optimisation of drug and research capability. Labour should therefore do everything it can to act as a conduit between the NHS and the Science and Technology industries, as NHS data acts as a key differentiator from our international competitors.
The road to success
Now that Labour is in power, it must work with industry and academia to fulfil the full potential of our Science and Technology industries. The Party has already identified the sector can be a key driver of economic prosperity for the country at large.
But it need not rip up the drawing board. Some things urgently need to change, such as our shot infrastructure reserves and dire housing situation. However, some of the successes that took place under the Conservatives, such as the strategic deployment of industry-supporting capital, help to provide a blueprint for success.
This blog was also published in Green Street News (£): https://greenstreetnews.com/article/five-things-labour-can-do-to-make-the-uk-a-scientific-superpower/
