David Agnew

In June Jack Kilby (inventor of the integrated circuit) died. He patented the microchip in 1958. However a British bloke - Geoffrey Dummer, come up with the idea in 1952, but couldn't get backing for the invention. More recently, Trevor Baylis had a lot of difficulty getting backing for his clockwork radio (it is now a success).

It is a bit of a cliche that the British are good at inventing things and bad at developing them, but there is some truth in this. For example some of the inventions central to modern life were invented by the British - the jet engine (Whittle), jet airliner (de Havilland), programmable computer (Bletchley Park), TV (Baird), internet (Berners-Lee). These inventions have spawned multi-billion £ businesses - but not in the UK. Where is the British Boeing?, the British computer industry?, the British consumer electronics industry?

I think that UKIP's plan to deregulate small businesses (less than 20 employees) should help start ups. Apparently the French government has a scheme whereby they will purchase products from French start ups to help them get off the ground - should this be UKIP policy as well? Should there be tax breaks for R&D? If the British banking industry is so strong, why is funding so difficult?

I haven't really put up any proposals for appraisal, because I don't have any. Do you?

Matty84

While not intrinsically a bad idea, i just believe that we should be reducing government from the domain of free enterprise. While, as you say private funding is often hard to secure, if the idea is a go'er then more times than not it will recieve funding, and ive no reason to believe the government is any better qualified to appraise projects than private venture companies such as 3i who have a proven track record. I guess purchasing their produce will help, but i would think venture capitalists would help market good products. My opinion only.

Lawrie Boxall

Gordon Brown has introduced tax breaks for R&D. Firms can (since about 1999) offset 50% of their R&D expenditure against corporation tax - so if you spend £1 on R&D you can claim £1.50 against the bottom line.

Although I have made use of this myself in the past I would rather the Chancellor worked towards reducing taxation so I could keep more of my own income and profit.

It's true that we are not terribly good at exploiting our innovations which often go abroad as a result. I think we have to admit that other countries are better suited by temperament at investing in edgy technology and then cranking the manufacturing handle than we are. But we are very good at investing in them once they have taken the risk and been successful. This is a kind of lazy man's method of making a living, but controlling the capital and not the labour does provide more flexibility even if sometimes it misses out on the exponential growth. It wasn't so long ago after all that our seafairers were making a good living out of piracy.

I am not sure anything can or should be done to change this because it seems to be in our nature. Governments have been trying for decades without success.

I say this as an engineer, having observed hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing and design go overseas since I started, trying to hop between the small islands that still exist and which are becoming very crowded with others doing likewise.

lkelly

New inventors may not know these things. It would help them if they knew the govt helped new inventors. Everyone knows who 'the govt'are!

Matty84

Agreed, everyone knows who the govt are, but it would never be 'the government' as such, but some quango like the princes trust, most likely with an equally unmemorable name. Given the amount of people entitled to benefits for example, but who dont claim, i cant see how the govt would be any better at marketing 'free' capital than a multi-billion pound company.

John Carter

Is it not true, however, that most innovations are created by individuals (not corporations), who haven't got the money to start with? Thus letting them claim back R&D expenditure seems a little useless.

:?

__________________
There are three kinds of people in this world: Libertarians, fascists, and those who haven't been paying attention.

Matty84

its fairly easy to set up as a company in this country isnt it? I dare say they could even incorporate only once the innovation was well underway, and, given the nature of R&D costs claim back R&D expenses incurred prior to incorporation. I know about half a dozen people with registered companies at university, i dont think they make any money, but its easy to set up all the same, and put expenses INTO phpbb_a company account.
Again, i might be wrong, but i think the UK is one of the easier countries in which to set up in.