Research and innovation: systems problems require systems solutions

In over three decades as an economist and policy adviser to government as a civil servant, one of the most important lessons I learned was that all interesting and challenging public policy problems are systems problems - how do we drive up growth, how do we improve health outcomes, how do we tackle climate change?

That’s what took me back to my background training as an engineer and my current role at the Royal Academy of Engineering. We are leveraging the expertise of our Fellows - industrialists, academics, often serial entrepreneurs and deep tech investors - to contribute to improving citizens’ lives.

UKRI’s new strategy starts with the premise that the question of how to invest public money in R&D to advance knowledge, improve lives and drive growth is a systems problem, which requires a systems solution. 

Interconnected investment that supports curiosity-based research and meets public needs and priorities, building the growing companies and great jobs that create the wealth in order to invest further and sparks the questions that research must answer.  We must have the confidence to embrace system complexity if we are to have a chance of delivering ambitious outcomes.

Mapping out a system identifies connections and feedback loops but it also identifies the gaps, and we must embrace those too and seek solutions.  I suggest three:

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The UK has a strong startup culture and our universities produce more spin outs that any other EU country. But we have a large late-stage funding gap. We see companies with strong growth potential moving overseas as a result. 

The Mansion House Compact and Accord, in which major pension providers agreed to invest in UK private companies to support growth, has promised more than it has delivered so far. 

British Business Bank is a reason to hope but is still scaling up its approach for innovative companies. Work is in train to help UK investors understand deep tech and take the managed risks we need them to embrace. But it’s too slow and too complex. 

For the companies we support the system can be opaque and demoralising to navigate. Who is going to step forward, map the system in a way that helps busy founders find their way and make sure that every part of the system is playing its part? We need this now.

Only 31% of professors in STEM subjects are women, men are nearly three times more likely than women to work in R&D, and women earn less on average when they do, as reported in the government’s recently published Women in Research Charter. And our work on UK spinouts shows that 83% of them have all-male founding teams. 

When you only access a limited proportion of the talent pool you are leaving innovation and growth opportunities on the table. The Charter requires better data to be collected and flexible working policies to be in place to support different career patterns.

It also calls out that women report persistent issues of bullying, harassment, and sexual misconduct across many parts of the research system. This is our system and we have to fix it.

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Research and innovation activity happens in places, companies grow in places, good jobs are created in places. So our system needs to be rooted in those places, and the communities that live there and their local democratic and civic institutions. 

If we want public consent to invest in research and innovation, we must connect people to the work and the impact it has. 

At the Academy we have developed a distinctive approach to support public dialogue on emerging technologies like safe and responsible AI and addressing increasing occurrences of high temperatures, drought and flooding. These events bring researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs together with local communities to listen to and learn from each other. 

The system is not complete without the public voice being listened to and heard. Yes, that means embracing the devolution agenda as a means to reach the public, as well as the mayors.

So I welcome the new UKRI strategy that takes a systems approach and uses that to make bold choices. Let us also use it to spot the gaps or broken connections and fix them.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author, and do not necessarily represent those of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB is Chief Executive at the Royal Academy of Engineering .