Gijs van Wulfen, LinkedIn influencer and the author of the FORTH Innovation Methodology defined innovation as a feasible relevant offering such as a product, service, process, or experience with a viable business model perceiving it as new and adopting it by customers.
In 2021, innovation is important for individuals, companies, and countries to improve their standing. By improving innovation within a country, there will be higher productivity which will lead to economic growth which is needed for most countries coming out of the pandemic.
Growth
The goal of increasing innovation is to improve economic growth, population well-being, communication and educational availability and environmental sustainability.
Likewise, the growth of the economy refers to the increase of inflation on goods and services produced by the economy. Technology is one of the top innovations that contribute to a growing economy. Through this increased growth of the economy, workers will start to have higher wages which will result in them buying more products and services. This will lead to companies being more profitable and will lead to an increased need of more employees.
Through this increased growth in the economy, the general well-being of the population will improve due to better living standards. Also including the reduction of sickness, poverty and hunger within their own country as well as around the world.
Access to improving communication and education through the technology innovation hub. The amount of mobile workers has increased massively in the last few years thanks to various mobile and communication technologies. Even in rural areas, people have access to information through the World Wide Web. Consequently, this allows them to improve on their knowledge no matter their socio-economic or demographic area.
Finally, an important area of improvement will be the environment with climate change knocking at our doors every day. There is a major need for new and innovative solutions to improve the world’s current situation and the future. There definitely has been an increase in innovation within this sector. However, countries need to improve on this sector a lot more in the coming years.
Innovation in the UK
Innovation within the UK has become increasingly important to help the UK build up again after the pandemic. In July 2021, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy released their strategy to make the UK a global innovation hub by 2035. Boosting innovation has become and essential part of accomplishing the UK’s goals ‘to be a force for good on global challenges. These are around climate, biodiversity, prosperity, and security’. Through this increased innovation, the economy will improve and will result in more job opportunities throughout the UK. The Department for Business Energy & Industrial strategy have said that ‘we need the whole system of businesses, government, R&D-performing organisations, finance providers, funders and others to come together to achieve our innovation ambitions’.
For this strategy, the government has put together 4 pillars to describe how they will achieve their goal of making the UK an innovation hub:
- In the Pillar 1 will unleash business by fuelling businesses who want to innovate.
- Pillar 2 will revolve around people and making the UK the most exciting place for innovation talent.
- You can find that Pillar 3 will concentrate on institutions and places. This will ensure their research, development & innovation institutions serve the needs of businesses and places across the UK.
- Finally, the Pillar 4 will focus on missions and technologies. The purpose is to stimulate innovation to tackle major challenges faced by the UK. Moreover, to understand how these challenges affect the world and drive capability in key technologies.
Over the next few months, FI Group will go into detail on each of these pillars and how the R&D community can assist in improving innovation within the country.
Hit the link below to download the UK governments Evidence for the UK Innovation Strategy!
