A New National Purpose: Innovation Can Power the Future of Britain

Science and technology have been the driving force of progress for much of our modern age. Our accomplishments have allowed us to live longer, healthier lives, to travel across the world and into space, and to generate food and energy at scale. Of course, as with the Industrial Revolution, this 21st-century technological revolution carries dangers as well as opportunities. The challenge for policymakers is to mitigate the former and fully embrace the latter. But this requires a fundamental re-ordering of our priorities and the way the state itself functions. The UK is starting with real strengths in many areas of emerging technology. It also has assets in its universities and in its private sector that offer significant advantages. However, as we show in this report, without radical change, we risk decline. We cannot afford to fall behind. The future of Britain will depend on a new age of invention and innovation. Technological superpowers such as the United States and China are investing heavily in their futures, raising the possibility that everyone else will be trapped behind these two forces – a risk the European Union is belatedly recognising and acting upon. Britain must find its niche in this new world. To do so requires a radical new policy agenda, with science and technology at its core, that transcends the fray of 20th-century political ideology. In turn, this requires a fundamental reshaping of the state, from how government itself works to how public services are delivered.