Correspondence

The contribution of science and technology for levelling up

Advice to the Prime Minister on how science and technology can help to address regional economic disparities across the UK and promote equality of opportunity.

• From: Council for Science and Technology and Government Office for Science
• Published: 4 February 2021
• Last updated: 22 July 2021 — See all updates

Documents

Levelling up: The role of science and technology - CST letter

PDF, 260 KB, 9 pages

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Levelling up: The role of science and technology - Prime Minister's response

PDF, 89.7 KB, 2 pages

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Levelling Up: Promoting local impact from investment in research and innovation - CST letter to the Prime Minister

PDF, 206 KB, 6 pages

The contribution of science and technology for levelling up (accessible webpage version of letter)

HTML

Details

In a letter to the Prime Minister sent in September 2020, the Council for Science and Technology (CST) explores how science and technology can contribute to addressing regional disparities and promoting equality of opportunity.

The letter proposes 6 recommendations focused on 4 areas:

1. Leveraging research and development funding for regional growth by scaling up collaborative funding opportunities to foster and enhance partnerships, within and between regions, where there are research and innovation synergies with the potential to contribute to local growth.
2. Further incentivising the contribution of research, innovation and technology centres to regional growth in funding agreements and in organisational strategies.
3. Enhancing the availability of information on local innovation strengths and needs, for local and national decision makers to inform effective investment strategies and to evaluate outcomes.
4. Supporting wider measures needed for research and development investment to act as a driver for local growth, including measures to support skills and to support local leadership and decision-making.

In a letter to the Prime Minister sent in June 2021, the Council for Science and Technology (CST) explores how promoting local impact from investment in innovation can help to build regional economic growth across the UK. Factors highlighted in the letter form a combination of support which enables business-led innovation and growth.

The letter proposes 4 recommendations focused on 7 identified areas which enable the strengthening of local innovation ecosystems:

1. Strong local leadership.
2. A skilled workforce (for core competency and general business practice) and ability to attract and retain those skills.
3. Strengthening innovation infrastructure provision.
4. Access to finance.
5. Collaborative culture across business, government, and research institutions.
6. Build on a core competency or strength of the area. This may be local resources linked to a place, local public skills, or centred on local business or educational institutions.
7. Positive local impacts are reliant on local level demand and absorptive capacity.

Published 4 February 2021
Last updated 22 July 2021 + show all updates

1. 22 July 2021

   Added an additional, later Levelling up letter and explanation about this letter.

2. 4 February 2021

   First published.