Engineering news
Universities and science minister David Willetts has defended his choice of the “eight great technologies” that have been singled out for financial support by the government to stimulate growth in the economy.
Earlier this year Willets announced that an extra £600 million of funding would be made available to spur innovation in eight areas of technology, including big data, satellites and autonomous systems. The funding aims to support these industries by helping emerging technologies make the jump from basic science to market-ready technology.
However, the policy has been criticised by academics and scientists, including the Royal Society, who argue that singling out technology areas stifles creativity and risks diverting funds from more worthwhile research.
Professor Polina Bayvel, head of the optical networks group at University College London, said that the government had made a “terrible omission” to miss communications technology and fibre optics off the list of eight great technologies.
She said: “Big data and the subsequent seven technologies all rely on the availability of agile smart and capacious information and communication systems.
“The UK has been a leader in this from the beginning. Optical fibres were proposed in the UK, semiconducting lasers were made in the UK, and optical amplifiers were developed here. Optical fibre communication systems were first introduced by British Telecom ahead of any other country. We need efficient communications, where do we get them from?
Willetts admitted Bayvel had a “fair point” and said: “It's a strong candidate that we will try and sneak in somewhere.”
He said that another possible technology to add to the eight great technologies was quantum technologies because it had “enormous potential”, but that the government could not change the eight technologies year by year. Quantum technologies is the application of quantum physics into areas such as computing, cryptography and imaging.
Willetts said that acceptance of the chosen technologies was high and that there was a “genuine constructive role for government” in the “long and messy” journey from laboratory to markets. “When we launched the eight great technologies we thought there could be large amounts of push back but by and large people accept them,” he said.
He added that the fear of “picking winners” has had a crippling effect on the necessity of governments to support technologies and exposed inventors and start-up companies to risk. He explained that in America various federal and state-based initiatives are designed to reduce risk and that needed to happen in Britain too. “Almost every big general purpose technology in everyday life had significant support going way beyond the lab,” he said.