Technology and Innovation Futures: Growth Opportunities for the 2020s

Technology and Innovation Futures (PDF, 824 Kb) is a forward look at a range of developments which have the potential over the next 20 years to support sustained economic growth in the UK. As the UK comes out of the economic downturn, it seems likely that future economic prosperity will derive in large part from seizing opportunities offered by technologies such as these.

The report concludes that there are strong opportunities for growth in the UK economy through the 2020s if businesses can harness scientific and industrial capabilities to take advantage of technology developments and identifies three potential areas of growth which could be transformative: manufacturing, infrastructure and the internet.

Other areas highlighted by the report are the energy transition which the UK will undergo during the next 10-20 years, the UK’s R&D efforts in new materials which could help realise the move to a low carbon economy, the potential of the market for regenerative medicine and the increasing importance of intellectual property - all of which offer opportunities for UK companies.

The evidence base used in the TIF project was gathered by deskwork, interviews with 25 leading figures from research and business, and five workshops involving 150 academics, industrialists, experts from the private sector and Government. The workshops used a range of futures techniques to provoke and structure discussions and the outputs of the workshops were considered and refined through further desk-work.

Click technology annex.

• , will open in a new window
  lick here for link!