Government ‘should prioritise digital sector’

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The Government needs to make the creative, digital and IT (CDIT) industries a priority or risk losing out on a major economic opportunity, according to a lobby group.

Just weeks before the Government’s first Comprehensive Spending Review, the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) has said the UK needs to assert itself in industries that are simultaneously creative, digital and IT focused.

“We believe that the UK has a window of opportunity in which to establish itself in the highly competitive, multi-trillion dollar CDIT market or be left trailing behind countries such as China, the US, Japan and Australia,” said Dr David Docherty, chief executive (CEO) of the CIHE and chair of the Digital TV Group.

“To do this the UK Government must recognise CDIT industries as a national priority in the same way as it has science, engineering and manufacturing.”

He also called on UK universities and businesses to “learn from and replicate the initiatives and innovation environments which brought the world Google, Amazon and Facebook.”

Firms should work closely with universities, whilst schools should shift their ICT curricula to integrate more creative and digital elements, the report suggested.

Cable and cuts

Despite Docherty's call for other industries to get as much attention as science, today has shown the Government focus on this may be waning as well.

Vince Cable, secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, said investment in science and research will need to be tempered with financial restrictions.

During a speech at Queen Mary, University of London, Cable said: “The question I have to address is can we achieve more with less?”

He stated his own preference would be to only give funding to projects of “excellence” and to “teams of international quality,” screening out “mediocrity.”

Whilst stating it would not be right to measure the worth of investing in research solely on its commercial value, Cable said thinking in monetary terms was also important.

“I support, of course, top class ‘blue skies’ research, but there is no justification for taxpayers money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding.”

Cable also encouraged increasing economic interactions between business and the researchers, as the CIHE has called for, and also talked of establishing a strong network of technology centres.

These would be “well-funded centres with long-term vision, focused on areas of clear technical leadership and commercial promise.”

“Science, research and innovation are vital to this country’s future economic growth. But we have to operate in a financially constrained environment,” Cable concluded.

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