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The UK government has made it clear that it sees ‘kick-starting’ the economy, as its overriding objective. Everything else, from funding the NHS to building up military capacity, depends on that.

Of course, all governments treat economic growth as a priority.  But there are at least two elements of the Starmer government’s approach that mark it out from its predecessor and could help make a difference.

First, this government has embraced a more activist approach to its economic role – in addition to embracing the job of the state to invest in skills, infrastructure and research, and create an enabling regulatory environment. Influenced by Marianna Mazzucato ‘Missions’ theory, it is promising to lead a series of cross-sectoral, multi-level partnerships build around 5 strategic ‘moonshots’, with government leadership intended to attract and direct private, philanthropic and community investment.

Second, the Starmer government clearly sees London as an asset.  Instead of directing resources and attention away from the capital to other more deprived areas, it emphasises that it is not a matter of ‘either-or’ but ‘both.’ This approach makes sense and would indeed generate greater economic benefits by integrating the complementary strengths of each location. London is a global economic capital and Research, Development and Innovation powerhouse, accounting for 15% of the UK's R&D efforts. It competes less with York than New York, less with Birmingham than Barcelona. There are thus greater opportunities for London, York, and Birmingham to collaborate and co-create by leveraging each other’s strengths, rather than solely focusing on developing each location independently. Its research-intensive universities can help lead the UK’s return to growth.

In a show of reciprocity, the Mayor, has also committed to powering up London’s economy as its top priority and embraced not just Starmer’s missions’ approach but his five missions (plus an extra one – housing – for luck). The new London Growth Plan makes much of how London’s growth can enhance that of the UK. 

So far so good.  But in the rest of this blog, we argue that if we are going to make mission-orientated co-creation a reality, and capitalise on London’s extraordinary strengths, we have to do a better job of connecting various elements of research, innovation and growth systems, and creating greater strategic alignment between them.

Currently, various facets—such as Research, Development, Innovation, Commercialisation, and Diffusion—tend to operate in isolation as separate projects. However, co-creating with stakeholders across these facets and facilitating coordination among projects at various stages would ensure a seamless transformation of outputs from independent projects to achieve missions. Below, we discuss three key changes that could enable London (and other regions of the UK) to achieve its missions through such strategic coordination.

1: Introducing a Coordinated Funding Portfolio

Currently, the UK funding landscape effectively supports numerous projects across the RDI lifecycle. However, this often results in many funding calls and associated projects, with the mistaken assumption that their outputs will automatically achieve missions. The plethora of funding calls makes it difficult for universities, businesses and communities to engage effectively, and there’s also a lack of alignment with local and regional growth plans.

There is thus room to increase the return on investment if UKRI adopts a more strategic and coordinated funding approach. UKRI should move towards funding a smaller number of larger mission-oriented calls that support strategic programmes. Each programme should include various Research, Development, Innovation, and Diffusion projects, with clear pathways for integrating and transforming their outputs to achieve missions. 

Collaboration within and across these calls could be supported by roadmaps for each mission, providing support suitable for each phase of the RDI lifespan. This could range from funding research projects to living lab networks, accelerators/incubators, and smart city initiatives. Additionally, government could act as public venture capitalists, so ensuring that even if businesses leave the UK, we benefit by having a share in the company.

The core of such calls should be the support for co-creation among stakeholders within and across regions. Different stakeholders would be suitable to co-create at various stages of the RDI lifecycle. More importantly, funding should facilitate coordination among projects to achieve greater missions.

Alongside this strategic and coordinated approach, UKRI could still maintain open calls for early-stage research projects. In this way, UKRI could achieve the best of both worlds—a strategically funded portfolio of projects and programmes and groundbreaking early-stage research output.

2: Leveraging UK’s Geographical Advantages

The UK's geographical smallness is a core competitive advantage that can be leveraged to introduce complementary mission-oriented clusters.  London, Oxford and Cambridge, for example, are three different cities, with contrasting strengths (e.g. Financial Services in London, Health and Biotechnology in Oxford and Advanced Manufacturing in Cambridge, among others). But their proximity makes close collaboration feasible – especially with strengthened transport investment (The East-West rail link) and more deliberate efforts at brokering and strengthening relationships. London and Edinburgh, are further apart. But nothing like the difference between many American or Chinese universities. It would not take much to build closer connections between London’s expertise in digital, cleantech, and agritech and Edinburgh’s in computer hardware, with high-speed transport connections. 

3: Strategically investing in Champions

The UK has excellent project focused funding programmes. Yet, we mistakenly assume that delivering projects will somehow automatically achieve missions. What are we missing? 

If we are going to achieve the six London missions and harness London’s strengths to achieve national missions, we need to invest in champions, who can accelerate the process of translating project outputs into missions. Champions could be individuals, groups, or organisations that play several crucial roles:

1. “Project of Projects” Role: Champions coordinate activities across multiple projects to ensure dynamic alignment among projects and missions, generating impacts, resource efficiency and translating projects to missions.
2. “Network of Networks” Role: Champions build and enhance connections among existing networks and create new ones tailored to specific project outcomes, crucial for sustainable mission delivery.
3. “Discipline of Disciplines” Role: Champions facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating diverse perspectives required to address complex challenges.
4. “Champion of Champions” Role: Champions foster peer support and strengthen the roles of other champions, amplifying their influence and encouraging collaboration.
5. “Funding of Fundings” Role: Champions use their unique knowledge and networks to secure funding and support others in securing funding to scale up projects. Champions also offer feedback to funding agencies of the evolving needs of projects and their translation to into achieving missions.

Some of the UKRI programmes already have a champion role, and it is evident that these programmes have been very successful due to the contributions of their champions. However, the current investment in appointing individuals or small teams is made in an ad hoc manner. Formalising the role of champions and extending it across the UK by aligning with missions and funding programmes can significantly enhance our RDI efforts. London could appoint a few champions, with the Greater London Authority (GLA) playing a key role.

Conclusion

Harnessing London's RDI potential through mission-oriented co-creation offers a promising path to prosperity for both London and the UK. By leveraging geographical advantages, introducing the role of champions, and creating a coordinated funding portfolio, we can foster collaboration, innovation, and sustainable growth. Let's engage in mission-oriented co-creation and unlock the full potential of London's RDI capabilities.

For more information about champions, see the website.

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