Opinion By Anne Miller Inventor

Ms Miller: "R&D is the most important sector within the $2.2 trillion global creative economy"

As part of the East of England's Space for Ideas initiative, inventor Anne Miller, who has registered more than 30 patents during the last 20 years, celebrates Britain's creative minds and asks why the UK is so lousy at making money from them.

The British are recognised internationally as being highly creative.

The workshop of the world may have long since disintegrated, but the UK still has the scientists, the engineers and the creatives to watch out for.

Our problem is that we ourselves often fail to recognise this strength, and most importantly, we are let down by a lack of understanding of how to convert ideas into commercial successes.

Pride and ignorance

There are some powerful cultural reasons for our lack of adventure in commercialising smart ideas.

I also try to feed my mind with new experiences, such as going to a museum, or flicking through magazines or newspapers. But I don't push it Psychology professor Richard Wiseman Read why ideas are the new currency

The pride the UK had in its scientists and inventors - for example, the post-war period when there was huge confidence in the "backroom boffins" to produce world-changing and improving technologies - has gone.

We have a business and management culture which is comfortable with the idea of technology as a separate function, a specialist area of which there is no need to have any detailed understanding.

In my experience, very few senior executives have a science or technology training, and if they do, they will shout about their management credentials and keep a "techie" background quiet.

Staff who would be embarrassed to admit they couldn't spell will boast of a lack of technical knowledge.

Business leaders ultimately have to rely on gut feeling to spot winners, to decide when to keep investing in ideas that might not work now, but have the potential to be the cash cows of the future.

How can this be done without an understanding of technology?

Choppers and bikes

Another factor is coyness about making money.

Expertise and vigour is required to commercialise ideas

A friend organizes charity fund-raising events with business people from around the world.

Special arrangements are often needed to accommodate entrepreneurs and the leaders of major corporations.

In the US, there are sometimes requests for helicopter pads, in the UK she is asked for somewhere to leave a bicycle.

It could be argued this was sentimentality: an appeal for a return to a lost age of heroic invention. But the root concerns are purely practical.

These kinds of cultural traits and attitudes in business are a threat to the future of the UK's �11.5bn research and development (R&D) industry.

Creative economy

In fact, the future for UK plc as a whole could be an unhappy one. Not only is there the possibility of the manufacturing industry disappearing, but also the thriving R&D industry which feeds into it.

R&D is the most important sector within the $2.2 trillion global creative economy.

In 1999 the world's expenditure on it was $545bn; higher than the combined totals of all the traditional "creative" industries such TV and Radio, Design, Music, Film, Fashion, Advertising and the Arts.

Less contact with the real world of manufacturing, with the rough and tumble of commercialisation and developing its own ideas and technologies, means that the UK would become purely an "Ivory Tower" centre of research.

Risky business?

Venture capitalists are starting to realise this, and are increasingly looking for firms that have a manufacturing capability and tangible assets.

It is less risky than relying on intellectual property that can be superseded before the money arrives.

The lack of expertise and vigour in commercialising ideas means that major funders already refuse to invest in European technology because there is a false perception it will lead to a low return compared with innovations from the US.

Business needs to wise up to the role of technology and to think more about innovation rather than relying on straight imitation and better marketing.

The UK government can help by backing up words with cash and by supporting major investments in areas of R&D that will put the UK into a clear leadership position.

Renewable energy is a good example. The UK has plenty to say to the world on the issue, it has the good principles and the expertise, but will it actually be leading on R&D and implementation of the technology?

Anne Miller is Director of The Creativity Partnership and co-founder of TTP Group. She has more than 20 years of experience in R&D.

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