The UK Government has committed to making the UK a ‘science and technology superpower’ by 2030. Funding, skills, collaboration and incentives were all identified as mechanisms needed to reach this goal, with the Government claiming that these investments will bring increasing prosperity, employment and productivity; as well as attracting global talent and funding; and delivering public benefits to health, climate security and society. These echo many of the government’s ambitions laid out in its Levelling Up white paper, which sets out the plan to reduce inequality across the UK.
Never has there been a better time to tie these two agendas together, using science and technology to level up neglected areas of the UK. Science clusters, encouraged by policy incentives and funding, will bring together businesses and academics to drive innovation, generate jobs and increase productivity – particularly in the north of England.
This panel event will discuss the opportunities and challenges to setting up successful science clusters, and the benefits they could bring both to local communities and the broader UK. As the Council for Science and Technology wrote to the Prime Minister last year, “The choices that government makes now about where to invest in research and innovation will steer the future of the UK”. This panel event will consider what the future of the UK science sector looks like.
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