The new R&D scheme will focus on high-risk projects that have the potential to hand Britain a stake in a technology that will define the future
“Iwant the uk to continue to be a global science superpower,” said Boris Johnson last year. On the basis of current r&d spending around the world (see chart) that seems unlikely to happen. Whereas the share of gdp devoted to r&d in many fast-growing countries is rising, Britain’s is flat. At $50bn, its annual r&d spending is 40% smaller than South Korea’s, even though its economy is three-quarters larger.
The government’s first step towards improving Britain’s dismal performance is the announcement that Kwasi Kwarteng, the new business secretary, is creating an agency to foster fundamental research. Its working title, the “Advanced Research Projects Agency’’, is a clue to the model. Copying the American agency of the same name set up in 1958, which continues to sponsor programmes such as a competition to design robots that can help in natural disasters (contestant pictured above), was one of the priorities of Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser.
UK science chiefs push back against plan for new DARPA-like ...
sciencebusiness.net › news › uk-scien...2020/10/08 — Two influential figures in UK science have pushed back against the aspiration of creating a British version of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), with former science minister Jo Johnson warning it could be ...
CBI POSITION PAPER: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A BRITISH ...
www.cbi.org.uk › arpa-position-paper-no-watermarkPDF
The creation of a British Advanced Research Projects Agency (BARPA) is an exciting opportunity to make the UK the envy of the world in research, if done right. ... It is an opportunity to increase long- term, high-risk R&D across the UK and to solve intractable social and technical challenges.
