Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection?

Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection? ‘Innovation’ is a much used (and abused) term employed to describe everything from flea collars for dogs[1] to electric cars. As a result, measuring innovation can be tricky, particularly in service sectors where firms’ relationships to customers are often individual and bespoke. Fortunately, the kind people at… Read more

Innovating … into trouble!

Innovation is good isn’t it? We all love exciting new products or services which are useful and add value to our lives. For firms too innovation can be good for attracting new customers and increasing profits. But what happens when innovation goes wrong? We have all experienced this. Think about the last time you tried… Read more

Sharing is the best strategy for small firm productivity

We know that the UK has a ‘long-tail’ of low productivity firms. The ability of these firms to increase their productivity has become a considerable concern for policymakers and is the subject of the Government’s soon to be published Business Productivity Review.  It is now recognised that one of the keys to raising productivity within… Read more

What is the State of The Art (SOTA)?

We are working in an increasingly fast-paced world in which more and more information is becoming available from multiple sources. For many of us, this situation makes it difficult to keep on top of complex issues and debates and identify trustworthy and reliable information. To help, the Enterprise Research Centre is today launching a new… Read more

On the value of daughters

Having a daughter can be a delight. I should know I have two. It turns out however that having a daughter is not only a delight but that it can also have a significant effect on the decisions we make about how we run our organisations and businesses. A fascinating new research paper describes what… Read more

Building better business health

Building better business health: what can we learn from public health campaigns? The continuing productivity gap between the UK and its international competitors has focussed attention on the competitiveness of UK firms. So how can we boost the health and vitality of UK businesses? Or, more accurately, how can we encourage businesses themselves to take… Read more

Talking trademarks

We are all familiar with trademarks from “Google” to ‘McDonald’s”. But who are the UK’s most active trademarkers? And, how is the profile of trademarking changing in the UK? Some data recently published by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on domestic trademark applications in the UK suggests some of the answers. Before looking at the… Read more

SMEs are losing out in the innovation race

SMEs are losing ground to larger UK firms in terms of innovation. This is one of the key messages in new innovation data recently published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The data taken from the UK Innovation Survey (UKIS 2017) provides the first robust benchmark for levels of business innovation… Read more

Aiming high on R&D – Is the UK’s 2.4 % target achievable?

ONS figures published this week suggest that the UK spent 1.67 per cent of GDP on R&D in 2016 ranking the UK 11th in the EU. These latest figures put the UK well adrift of the ambitious target of 2.4 per cent R&D spending spelt out in the Industrial Strategy. So, is the 2.4 per… Read more