The Department of Trade and Industry in the UK believes that Innovation Platforms are the way to manage its new R&D portfolio.
After years putting its weight behind subject areas like photonics, renewable energy, sensors and control systems and electronics and display systems, the UK's Department of Trade and Industry recently decided to move behind the concept of innovation platforms. These are not to be confused with the Technology Platforms that are a new feature of the EU's support for R&D.
The details of the UK's platforms became a little bit clearer late last month when the DTI had one its series of day-long sessions to launch a new round of bidding for money to support R&D. (Be warned that a lot of the DTI web site is bust at the moment as they implement a new design.) There we learned the definition of an innovation platform:
"A societal challenge bringing together a range of technologies and policy levers to deliver innovative new products and services for which there are real customers in a potentially large global market."
The idea seems to be to get away from technologies looking for solutions, to problems that need sorting out, and where there is a chance to make loads of money from doing it.
The DTI has already set the wheels in motion for two pilot platforms, Network Security and Intelligent Transport Systems & Services. Each will get £10 in pump priming loot. Each also has the backing of more than one government department.
The away day also saw the launch of a handful of more traditional technologies that they want to fund in this round of the Technology Programme:
- Advanced Materials
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Bioscience and Healthcare
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Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing
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Electronics and Photonics
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Emerging Energy Technologies
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Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
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Sustainable Production and Consumption
Details of what they really mean by these broad titles are on the DTI's web site, if you can find the files. In all, there's something like £80 million on offer.
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