This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Minister addresses innovation conference
26/11/2001
The Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning today addressed the Innovation in the 21st Century in Scotland conference in Glasgow.
She stressed that the challenge in a fast changing international market place is to create opportunities at home, and that 'invented in Scotland' should also be 'made in Scotland'.
The full text of her speech follows:
Getting Scotland growing again should be at the heart of the mission of the Scottish Parliament. Yet in the last half century Scotland has only surpassed the growth rate in the UK in few isolated years. It has been a time of relative economic underperformance. We need to change all that. The question is how?
All over the world - because it is a global challenge countries are struggling with how to get the best from their people and their ideas. There are 3 challenges in getting the best from our people and our ideas.
- How to help our young people fulfil their hopes? Too often having succeeded in getting our youngsters into university, (we already do that better than any almost any other country on the planet) we have failed to provided them with the choices they deserve when they graduate. We all know too many Scottish graduates enticed away from Scotland by opportunities elsewhere, all too rarely to return.
- How to get new ideas out of university labs and into businesses? Too often in Scotland we have invented, but let others reap the commercial return. In future 'invented in Scotland' should also be 'made in Scotland'.
- How can Scotland be a learning nation for all? Too few Scots willing to return to learn again and again, although their personal prosperity and that of the nation as a whole will depend on it.
So Scotland's challenge in a fast changing international marketplace is creating better opportunities here at home. In times past the lad o pairts typically went away to make his way in the world. Yet our challenge should be that Scots of all ages should see those opportunities here at home.
Having those opportunities here at home means raising Scotland's game. Only if we become a learning nation can people, of all ages, confidently commit to Scotland as where they want to develop their talents and bring up their families. It means recognising Scottish universities as our savings bank for the future. Both the source of new ideas and the nourishment of our people.
So what will it take to raise our game? We should be concerned that Scotland, the whole nation, spends less on research than one company, Nokia. We need to turn that around.
So what has gone wrong? Scotland ranks 3rd in the world in research papers per head of population. And public support for science in Scotland - by government and universities - is above the UK average, above the US and close to the EU average.
Our problem is that Scottish business that fails to invest in R&D, investing at less than half the rate of the UK or OECD competitors and dragging down our overall performance. How we change that underinvestment by businesses in research is perhaps the greatest enterprise single challenge that Scotland faces.
Pumping resources separately into Universities and businesses will not itself result in a spontaneous change in the rate of commercialisation. We still need to develop better linkages between the two sectors, to increase the dialogue. And if we get it right as a nation, the payoff will be disproportionately large.
We need new businesses in Scotland that are born, grow and make their investment decisions here. New research based businesses that build durable links between universities and businesses.
And we are already doing just that. Over 100 companies spun out from Scottish Universities. New companies, home grown, head quartered here, creating their own success and able to invest in even greater success.
The right structure
It was these key links that led 2½ years ago to enterprise and lifelong learning and science being brought together in one department - to breakdown barriers and to strengthen the linkages on which Scottish success for our people and our country depends.
The vision was for Universities and colleges to embrace learning, throughout life, as a mission. And put in place a structure driven by a vision of skills and science, as the twin engines of Scotland's future economic success.
That structure is already delivering. And in the next 18 months we need to build on what has been achieved so far - because there are other vital links to schools to achieve our ambitions of better access, and opportunity for all, to the environmental agenda, through better research into renewables, making a reality of joined up government between our enterprise ambitions and our efforts in transport. And in reaching rural and urban communities for whom lifelong learning is today just a distant soundbite.
Looking to the future - there are 2 principal challenges - to create ladders of opportunity, throughout life; and pipelines of success in research. Scotland is well placed to succeed.
Ladders of opportunity throughout life
Why are we well placed to succeed? Well we should draw on that proud history of four Scottish universities when England had two, on the vision of the lad o pairts, and of Scotland's reverence for the democratic intellect. Never quite a reality, but a kernel of something vital - a tradition given life by one in two young Scots already going onto higher education, many via further education because of the close relationships we have built between the two.
But making a reality of learning for life means overcoming a Scottish failure - fewer Scots return to learn in later life than in other parts of the UK. Rediscovering that thirst for learning, again and again in later life is a vital future mission for Scottish further and higher education.
Because if our vision is to have every Scot ready for tomorrow's jobs we need to overcome the "fear factor".
Go out into Sauchiehall St and ask the first person you meet what they would feel about walking into a lecture theatre on Gilmorehill this morning. The most likely response is fear. But ask how they feel about one of our local FE colleges and they will almost certainly be more upbeat.
So further education is a way of overcoming our fear of education in adult life. Education in adult life is where Scotland has been underperforming - not just relative to the rest of the UK but also to the world's leading competitor nations. Encouraging adults to return to learn is at the heart of Scotland's future challenges.
But what sort of learning will people look for in the future? Again go out onto Sauchiehall St ask someone what is the best or safest job they could have? How can they know?
Well by next spring Scotland should be the first part of Britain to have a personalised service, available to every Scot, about what skills and learning are in demand and could offer security to them and their family in the years to come. Those skills may by in teaching, nursing, caring, construction, software, finance, design, the creative industries. We need to empower people to make their own choices about the learning they need again and again throughout life. A veritable democratic intellect for the twenty first century.
So creating opportunities at home in a knowledge age means helping our universities be local powerhouses.
An economic powerhouse like RGU working with the oil and gas sector so that oil companies all over the world turn to Scotland for engineering and expertise.
A community powerhouse like the Crichton campus at the heart of the revival of the battered Dumfries and Galloway community.
A society powerhouse, like UHIM helping the Highlands rebuild for a new era cradled by a Celtic history and the Gaelic language. And here in Glasgow whether its Glasgow Art School is forging links with the creative industries, or the design rooms of BAe Systems at Scotstoun, trying to win aircraft carrier orders for the Clyde built on skills honed in our naval architecture and engineering departments. Scotland needs its universities at the heart of their local communities.
So if universities are to be about opportunity for all we also need to provide pipelines of support for research
If we are to turn ideas into invention and innovation we need to create pipelines of support that takes new ideas all the way from the lab and to new businesses.
Again we can take inspiration from history. Scotland is a nation steeped in invention. From the steam engine of Watt, to the telephone of Bell and the television of Logie Baird, the anaesthetics of Simpson and antibiotics of Fleming, the tyres of Dunlop to the radar of Wilkins and Watson Watt. Scots have brought the world a wealth of invention.
And today that work continues: Dolly cloned at Roslin, and Dundee the hub of pioneering cancer research.
As we in Scotland start to tell a new story to the world in the next century we must build on that tradition.
Let me tell you of just a few of the building blocks we have put in place over the last couple of years.
Most universities now have technology transfer and commercialisation offices. The new Proof of Concept Fund, supporting Scottish scientists turn ideas into inventions. And last summer the new Knowledge Transfer grant launched.
Also last summer, the first ever Science strategy for Scotland, putting Scottish scientists in the lead in shaping science policy. Now in the lifetime of this Parliament, a 15% real terms increase in science spending, partly achieved by redirecting the enterprise budget to better support Scottish innovation.
Last month the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, up and running barely a year - now promising that undergraduates in five Scottish Universities, whatever their course of study, access to entrepreneurship courses.
Today the launch of ScottishResearch.com to help our businesses find their way to the right researchers. Again today the promise of further expansion of Enterprise Fellowships supporting PhD students to stay on at the bench and simply invent.
But still it is not enough.
In January a new partnership between Edinburgh University and Stanford, the world's leading research university, funded jointly with Scottish Enterprise.
And later in the spring another partnership between Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, a university credited with leading the transformation of Pittsburgh from tradition steel town to modern manufacturing centre. Through a partnership with Glasgow and Strathclyde I want the same transformation for the West of Scotland.
Also in the new year a big step in consigning old style economic development of large RSA spending to lure inward investors down played in favour of investing in Scottish success.
Success will not be instant. Alexander Fleming had to wait a decade for the power of antibiotics to be realised.
And it will demand further change all round. We need Scottish universities to more rapidly release IP to businesses.
But our commitment must be constant.
And we need to believe that with enough spinouts one or two will strike gold and go global. One of those 100 spinouts from Scottish universities, may grow into a Scottish Power, or an S&N or a Standard Life of the future, or more possibly a Cisco, of the biotechnology or optoelectronics world.
So our Universities and colleges not simply as knowledge players of the future, they are also vital wealth creators of the future. We need that faith in the future on behalf of our children so when they graduate they can stay. Our promise to them should be to get Scotland growing again.
But this new route to Scottish success, can only succeed if Scotland's scientists know they matter, know they have the backing, and know they can directly shape the policy to their needs. And as we painstakingly build that pipeline of support for innovation: fractured leadership, severed relationships, false boundaries can only slow progress when the global competition is intensifying all the time.
Telling that story of success
In two short years we have already come a long way in starting to tell a new story about Scotland. Scottish Development International, only 3 months old, but already dedicated to marketing Scottish knowledge worldwide.
But in future cultivating creative people will matter as much as supporting their ideas. So last month we launched the search for the influential Scots worldwide.
Already we are in discussions with SHEFC on how we mobilise Scottish alumni across the globe for the benefit of Scotland and how we market the Scottish Universities alongside Scottish knowledge in the global marketplace to attract a whole new generation of overseas students to enrich the learning environment here at home. The world coming to Scotland, as much as Scotland going to the world.
Conclusion
If Scotland wants sioto create a new success story it will depend on the application of skills and science to create a learning nation. Getting the best out of all our people and supporting their ideas out into the world.
We need institutional structures throughout the system from government to local authority that help that vision become a reality. A policy that owes more to our future than to our past.
This is not about some territorial defence of the status quo but a stake in the ground for Scottish success. Science and skills hand in hand, invention and innovation, ideas out of our labs and into our businesses, learning for life so Scots can make the very best of themselves. Opportunity for all, throughout life.
Scotland has often set a standard in learning and invention for the world, we have started to lead again. And now, backed by more investment and the commitment of all of us, we will make a reality of the vision of that Scotland. A learning nation that gets Scotland growing again.