Blog: The league table of innovation

Our Managing Director, Neil Kermode, discusses the recently published European league table of innovation.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people there are beavering away at trying to track abstract measures of performance. We become blasé about the figures that scroll across our screens, never really wondering how they are derived.

But one set of figures that came across my desk this week did seem particularly important. The league table of innovation.

We know how important innovation is to the UK economy. One does not need to look far in modern life to see a British innovation that has changed our world from the ARM processor in most phones to the jet engine overhead, the pneumatic tyre of the car driving past or the hum of the fridge in the corner running from the national grid. Inventions that built our world, and built it innovation by innovation by innovation.

So no-matter what happens with Brexit; we know we can rely upon our innovative nature to succeed. Or can we?

Initially it was a surprise, if not something of a shock, to discover we are not even in the top quarter of innovators in Europe. In many of the measures we are below the EU average, in some we are near the top, but all told we are 9th.

Source: European Innovation Scoreboard Interactive Tool

It was a surprise to see Sweden as the innovation leader overall and leading the ‘human resources’ and ‘quality of academic research’ area; Finland leading ‘financial framework conditions’; Germany leading the ‘amount invested in innovation’; Belgium leading ‘innovation networks and collaboration’; and Ireland leading in ‘innovation in SMEs’.

But I think this is really exciting for the UK. It means that we can really ‘up our game’ safe in the knowledge that we will not be wasting effort by getting too far out in front of our competitors. We can accelerate and deepen our efforts and push up the league table, but without over-shooting our targets.

It shows there is space to improve.

Of course it would be better still if we were already on top and knew that we just had to keep applying the same level of effort to stay there; but we aren’t and we shouldn’t worry about it. We just need to reflect on whether we are content to stay with such a mediocre ranking.

I’m excited because on a daily basis we see the innovation going on around us in the marine renewables world. The fantastic recent deployment of the Sustainable Marine Energy sub-sea robot drill to put in their anchors and the arrival of Scotrenewables’ SR2000 – the biggest tidal turbine in the world – are both examples of pure-raw innovation. Both of these small companies are doing amazing stuff at the incubator space we set up here in Orkney. They are doing it quietly and on typically British shoe-string budgets. But they are doing it.

So we have the innovators and we have the track record of delivering it safely.

Just think what we could do if we really put the ‘pedal to the metal’ and decided that 9th is not good enough!

We’re up for it. Who else is with us?

Neil Kermode
EMEC Manager Director