“The total amount we spend as a nation on research and development is significantly less than countries such as the US and government spending on R and D has been less than the OECD and EU average,” Gove claimed.
I am not an instinctive advocate for higher government spending. But the evidence from the most successful start-up nations – US and Israel – is that thoughtful government investment in science triggers a culture of innovation more widely that generates the businesses of the future.
The internet was a government creation – developed by the American government’s scientific incubator DARPA – and the amazing creativity in Silicon Valley is a function not just of America’s more effective venture capital system but of government leadership.
More and more thinkers have made a compelling case for a leading role for government in creating a more entrepreneurial state. And that must be the right course for Britain – creating our own equivalent to DARPA, providing the capital for new tech innovation and helping the tech sector grow even faster.
The Register claimed the UK had a DARPA equivalent in DERA, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, which was privatized as QinetiQ. However, DERA never had projects as ambitious as DARPA and nowhere near the $3 billion per year budget of DARPA. QinetiQ has deployed about 2000 Talon robots.
SOURCES- Register UK
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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