Donelan: Tech success must make Brits’ lives better

THE GOVERNMENT’S new technology secretary has promised to turn the UK’s research triumphs into “actual, tangible benefits” for the country as she launches a new science and tech framework today. 

Writing for City PM, Michelle Donelan said the UK’s “most incredible days of innovation are not in our past (but) are happening right now.” 

Donelan will announce today a £370m injection of cash into research into AI, quantum computing and engineering biology. 

She is the first ‘technology secretary’ in Britain’s history, with the department created from a re-organisation of the Business Department last month.

The science and tech framework announced today promises to, amongst a range of commitments, put public sector procurement to use to boost investment and will “leverage post-Brexit freedoms to create world-leading, pro-innovation regulation and influence global technical standards.” 

“If we achieve what we are setting out, one day Britons of the future will look back on our society and see us as the starting gun for a Britain that lives smarter, longer, happier and healthier,” she writes today.

Amongst the funding commitments both new and old is a £117m fund to back hundreds of new PhDs for AI researchers and a £50m uplift to the UK’s ‘World Class Labs’ programme.

The announcement of the new framework comes amid signs that the UK could soon be able to rejoin the cross-Europe research programme Horizon, with the country’s membership a casualty of Brexit.

Last week after the signing of the Windsor Framework on Northern Ireland, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she would welcome talks as soon as the deal was implemented.

However there have been reports the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, may look for a more limited engagement in Horizon.