U K S P A v i s i o n & m i ss i o n
Getting it right
Paul Wright, Director and Chief Executive of UKSPA, believes the time is right
to get it right for the UK – disruption does not occur when things are working
W
hile I believe most of us
in the science park and
innovation world did not
look fondly on the Brexit
decision, after one year
we now have a little more information
and less hysteria to reassess the
overall situation.
It seems to me that the larger an
organisation is, the more easily it is
locked into a certain rhythm with
established processes and procedures that
tend to promote ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t
let’s try to fix it’ behaviour. This can be
quite destructive after a while because
no-one questions the norm. No-one is
actually primed to seek out disruptive
innovation. No-one bothers disrupting
anything because it is working, do they?
With seven of the ten pillars of the
industrial strategy focusing on matters
relating to science parks and innovation,
I believe we have the opportunity to
reassess our position within the overall
ecosystem, and how we might wish to
integrate ourselves with the wider
innovation network in future.
Skills development is key
Skills development is one of those critical
areas, if not the most critical issue for us
to address now. I recently read a report
suggesting that by the time a nine-year-
old learning coding today leaves school,
those skills will already be redundant, as
Artificial Intelligence is already starting
to create that level of coding.
So the nation needs to be far more
proactive on the skills agenda if we are to
remain competitive. If we get science and
technology skills being taught in schools
right, then we might have the technicians
and researchers we need to feed through
to start-ups, encouraging the next
generation of entrepreneurs that
universities need to lead future spinouts.
Science parks are already planted
within their communities. They must
now seek to evolve and encourage wider
networking through both digital and
social connectivity – the people
themselves. With more well-considered,
supported entrepreneurialism and more
incubation being fed into the value chain,
we might then focus on acceleration and
scale-up of companies, driving the
innovation engine all the way through
to supporting exit plans that will
deliver mature companies into the
wider community, all to the benefit
of local and national economies. Brexit
or no Brexit, soft or hard, we now have
the opportunity to get it right. ■
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