Risk and Reward: sustaining a higher value-added economy - Business and Enterprise Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 495-499)

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY BOARD

20 NOVEMBER 2008

  Q495 Chairman: Good morning gentlemen. Welcome to this final evidence session in the Committee's long running inquiry into the higher value-added economy. You are very important witnesses. You have come up a lot during our discussions over the last year so we are looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Can I begin, as I always do, by asking you to introduce yourselves for the record?

Mr Gray: Iain Gray. I am Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board. I have been in position for just over 12 months after having spent some 28 years in the aerospace sector.

  Mr Hutchins: I am Graham Hutchins, Director of Operations and Services. I have been with the Technology Strategy Board since the beginning of July 2007 having spent 17 years in industry with FedEx, Vodafone and a small SME.

  Mr Bott: I am David Bott, Director of Innovation Programmes. I was 27 years in BP then Courtaulds and then ICI.

  Q496  Chairman: I know one member of the Committee, apart from the Chairman, who is thrilled to hear you all have commercial backgrounds. How much does that characterise your organisation?

  Mr Gray: For me, Chairman, it is a fundamental of the organisation. There is a very big difference in terms of the way we tackle things. There are some 75 people in the organisation, probably three-quarters of them with previous business experience and indeed one of our boasts is 610 years cumulative business experience around the senior team. So it is very much a characteristic and a characteristic we want to make dynamic and stick with as we move forward.

  Q497  Chairman: I hope the Committee does not think I am prejudging our report by saying that that is commendable. There is always an issue about where organisations like yours sit in the great scheme of things and how you relate to things. When the new department was created you were a creature of that new department DIUS. Innovation and technology are matters of such central importance to business that I think there is a strong case for saying that perhaps you have the wrong parents, but I am sure that you have very effective relationships with all the key players. You will tell me that the cross-departmental working is marvellous and the RDAs all know exactly how to get on with you but will you reassure me how you manage to coordinate all these different bodies and have a coherent approach.

  Mr Gray: We are a new organisation and I think we have been given the very privileged role of being a key interface between government, business and academia. In many respects the fact that we have been established as an independent, an arm's length sort of relationship, is more important than which organisation itself we were in. One of our objectives is actually very much, as you say, to work across government departments. That is the spirit of the organisation and the support we are given. We are under the sponsorship of DIUS. We have a very, very close relationship with BERR, in fact many of the technologists and senior civil servants in BERR were the originators of the Technology Strategy Board idea. So that relationship with BERR is hugely important. I think the key thing about the organisation is this sort of leadership role and it is a leadership role that goes across government departments in the innovation space but also goes across the RDAs, the devolved administrations, the research councils in the exploitation and innovation side of the spectrum and a number of different partnership organisations. You can have a great assurance that our objective is to grasp that leadership opportunity. From a pure DIUS point of view it is actually very, very exciting to see how the skills agenda and the technology exploitation agenda have come together because they are probably two of the key issues for us.

  Q498  Chairman: We want to talk about skills, as you would expect, later on; Julie Kirkbride will be asking those questions. It is a bit like herding cats, is it not, with all these different organisations, government departments, RDAs and their competing agendas? Let me give you an example. You talk about nanotechnology as one of your priorities. I come from the West Midlands where we want quantum technology to be a priority which is all the work that is being done on the QinetiQ's proposals for a quantum technology centre. How would you relate to a proposal like that which is not on your list?

  Mr Gray: That is a very good example in actual fact of part of our remit. If you look through the strategy what we have established is some very key technology centres of focus, nanotechnology as you rightly say is one of them. You will also see that one of the key aspects of what we are about is what we call emerging technologies, it is identifying those new disruptive technologies that are going to come along. We are very much in dialogue with QinetiQ, as it happens, in your region to see how we can move that forward. I would say that one of the objectives of the organisation is to keep the technology pipeline full in some of the existing technologies but really, really work and identify the future disruptive technologies. That is core to what we are about.

  Q499  Chairman: You split up your budget into three headings: challenge-led innovation, technology-inspired innovation and innovation climate. You are also an advisor to government. How important is that role? How do you express an advisory role?

  Mr Gray: One of the key facets of our organisation is the pivotal role we play between government, business and academia in the innovation space. There is a great tendency for people to focus in straightaway in terms of funding and looking at us as a funding agency. One of the big messages we are feeding back out to business is that as an organisation we are much, much more than just a funding agency. We can influence things like regulation where we can see regulation being a key stimulant to innovation; we can see how standards can play a very key role in promoting innovation. We can identify those sorts of areas across government where potentially procurement can play a very big role. So the advice and influencing role is very much a key part of what we are about. Indeed, the title of our strategy which is Connect and Catalyse is trying to portray a message which is significantly beyond that of just being a funding agency.


 
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