Written evidence submitted by Imperial College London (IGR0098)

Summary

Imperial College London is a global top ten university – second in the world and first in Europe - and the only major UK university to focus exclusively on science, technology, engineering, medicine and business (STEMB). We make critical contributions to UK research and innovation across key technology sectors, with a higher proportion of world-leading research than any other UK university. Our entrepreneurs are creating significant economic impacts across the UK, with Imperial student startups and staff spinouts have raised £930mn of investment in the last five years and supported over 6,100 jobs in 2023/24 alone.[1]

How does the Government drive research and innovation in our regions?

1. To make the UK the best place to start innovative businesses that create growth and prosperity, we must ensure that the best scientific talent is attracted, supported and networked across the country. The competition is between the UK and the rest of the world, not within the UK - we have to create the scale needed to capture the true value arising from our academic excellence to compete globally. This means protecting research excellence and discovery to continue to create world-changing knowledge and ideas and supporting proven university innovation schemes.

2. Our competitors are not standing still in the race to dominate key strategic technologies such as AI, quantum, semiconductor, cleantech and engineering biology.  They are pressing ahead both with investment in R&D and policies to attract global science talent:

• The US now invests $202 billion in R&D - a $41 billion increase from the start of the Biden Administration[2] and the largest ever investment for federal R&D[3], Germany is targeting 3.5% of GDP on R&D[4] and China is increasing its R&D investment by 7% annually.[5]
• By contrast, the UK’s share of R&D investment has been falling behind our competitors and is now estimated to be around 2.9-3% (2021)[6] with government investment in R&D at £15.5billion in 2022.[7]

3. Against this backdrop, it is essential that we focus on the next great waves of innovation and harness the UK’s global competitive advantage in scientific excellence. This advantage is built on our strength in fundamental science, our ability to attract and retain technology talent, and our reputation as an international centre of finance. Research-intensive universities are a rich source for new technologies, intellectual property and entrepreneurs who create future high-growth companies. Enabling the UK’s best researchers to collaborate wherever they are and to fund the best research wherever it is found is more important than ever for the ongoing success of UK science.

4. Scale is essential for us to be able to compete and we can only achieve this though working effectively and coherently across the UK, and with trusted international partners. The UK science and innovation community has only been able to compete with the US over the past decades because of the strength of our own national UK innovation assets, achieved through a relentless focus on excellence irrespective of place, and our ability to create scale through partnership across the UK and with European collaborators in particular. This scale has been central to Imperial’s ability to compete successfully among the global top 10 universities despite the much larger funding sources enjoyed by our US and Asian competitors.

5. The UK as a whole should be considered a science and technology ecosystem where hubs of excellence are networked across the country. Through academic, industry and community partnerships and collaborations universities drive economic growth, provide skills and improve health outcomes nationally.[8]

• Quality Related (QR) block grant funding distributed by Research England provides a unique combination of scale, stability and flexibility for science innovators and is critical in enabling excellent discovery research in the UK science base. QR has allowed Imperial to make strategic investments in our people, our research and our facilities to enable world-class research.[9] QR must be protected in real terms, and will need further investment if we are to increase our R&D capacity.

• Proven university innovation schemes like the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) and Connected Capabilities Fund (CCF) play a crucial role within the higher education and research funding system to create startups and partnerships with industry at all levels across the UK.[10] CCF, for example, has funded Imperial’s MedTech[11] and AI Superconnectors[12] that are driving commercialisation of new technologies across the UK. This critical support for entrepreneurs to create businesses of the future with significant economic impact must be maintained.

• Large-scale multilateral European Framework Programmes provide access to knowledge, talent and networks and support our ability to compete with other global research powers. The UK must remain as internationally collaborative as possible and should consider association to the EU’s next Framework Programme, as set out in the recent government position paper.[13]

6.         Funding R&D in one location doesn’t mean that jobs and economic growth necessarily end up in the same place. New technologies and startups have impact across the UK irrespective of where they have been created. Universities build ‘innovation bridges’ across the UK to enable the translation of technology and sharing of experience to accelerate local innovation. Imperial is an example of a university that is based in the South East and incredibly networked across the UK and globally. Imperial’s interactive UK Impact Map highlights how ideas and innovation created by our academics are captured in economic activity, improvements to quality of life and job creation across the country - our student startup and staff spinout companies have raised £930mn of investment in the last five years and supported over 6,100 jobs in 2023/24 alone, creating significant economic growth and industries of the future across the UK. For example, between 2018 and 2022, Imperial academics co-authored publications with 900 different organisations across the UK – including academic, industrial, government and third sector partners. Imperial has used successful innovation funding schemes to grow and deepen networks of UK partners in critical sectors for growth and productivity:

• Puraffinity was formed in 2015 by two Imperial international students, Henrik Hagemann and Gabi Santosa, a green technology company that has developed materials that remove harmful ‘forever’ chemicals from wastewater. The company is based in the White City Innovation District, at the heart of the Imperial WestTech Corridor, but is also developing an outsourced manufacturing facility in Middlesbrough, which will create highly-skilled jobs in the North East.
• Imperial start up Impression Technologies Limited is making the next generation of green cars more efficient, replacing steel with aluminium using an innovative and patent protected technology. Impression Technologies successfully raised £6m investment to create a production facility in Coventry which employs 45 people in highly-skilled roles.[14]
• Imperial graduates Paul Mendieta (Ecuador) and Beren Kayali (Turkey), founded Deploy which has developed an air-deployed, ready-to-use water tank capable of holding 40,000 litres of water that has a 70% lower carbon footprint than conventional water tanks. Now based in South Wales, Deploy are developing their product to deliver long-term sustainable growth and create and safeguard highly skilled jobs in the region.
• Developed by Imperial’s Enterprise Lab, WE Innovate is a pre-accelerator programme that supports women founders and entrepreneurs from the Imperial community. Since its establishment in 2014, WE Innovate has supported over 500 women, 250 founder teams, with startups collectively raising almost £40m. In partnership with six other universities across the UK, Imperial will be the coordinating centre of WE Innovate National, where a network of women entrepreneurs from across the country can receive dedicated mentorship, training and funding to realise the potential of their ideas.

7. It is critical that we capture the value from research-intensive universities – and this should drive a national strategy, supporting growth of start-ups within the UK rather than seeing them migrate to the US. This is enabled by a whole country approach to the UK with an R&D ecosystem that is properly networked - physically and/or virtually.

8. Alongside national programmes, local and regional government have a critical role to play in supporting research and development to capitalise on local strengths and opportunities. Imperial's White City Deep Tech Campus anchors the White City Innovation District, developed in partnership with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) to establish a global economic hotspot for science and innovation from which the local community would benefit. In 2017, Imperial and Hammersmith & Fulham Council launched a first-of-its-kind industrial strategy, Economic Growth for Everyone, from which a unique Growth Partnership developed. The partnership is fuelled by close collaboration between academics, businesses, entrepreneurs and the local community, helping to deliver growth and inclusive regeneration across the local area. Since 2017, the industrial strategy has helped attract £6 billion of investment and created more than 13,000 new jobs in Hammersmith and Fulham. The borough is now home to globally-renowned companies such as Autolus, L'Oréal and Novartis, with 85% of this investment in the fields of science, technology, engineering, maths, medicine and media.

9. Imperial’s White City Deep Tech Campus – at the heart of the London West Tech Corridor – has created the conditions for innovation and growth to flourish. It provides access to world-leading research expertise, cutting-edge businesses, lab and office facilities and infrastructure, and business advice to create an ecosystem that is ‘investment-ready’. Alongside the world class academic research taking place there, the campus is home to:

• Imperial’s Incubator which provides flexible lab and office space as well as access to equipment, and business advice, to help early stage founders to test their ideas, develop their business model, and transform their innovations into impactful ventures. The Incubator has a very strong track record - since moving to White City in 2016, companies coming through Imperial’s Incubator have had a greater than 82% survival rate, raised over £500m in investment and created over 600 jobs.

• Scale Space, a joint venture between Imperial and venture builder Blenheim Chalcot based on Imperial’s White City Deep Tech Campus, supports all challenges scaling businesses face. Access to venture support from Blenheim Chalcot and flexible grow-on space for scaling companies is essential but, in addition, Scale Space also provides the invaluable platforms to network and coalesce around similar business growth issues, irrespective of technology area, learning from experienced professionals and peers.

10. Convening Imperial’s unique innovation assets across West London further, the London WestTech Corridor will act as a powerful engine for investment, inclusive economic growth, and job creation at a local, regional, and national level. Imperial is working to realise the potential of the London WestTechCorridor, working with government and others, to create even greater investment and growth opportunities:

• Imperial has recently invested £150 million to purchase and repurpose the 9.6-acre site known as Victoria Industrial Estate in Old Oak close to the future Old Oak Common Station hub. The site will provide flexible and affordable follow-on space to enable innovators to stay and scale in West London with spaces for prototyping, pilot manufacturing, Good Manufacturing Practice and advanced manufacturing in areas such as CleanTech, BioTech and MedTech.

• Imperial also recently announced a new partnership with Bruntwood SciTech, the UK’s largest property platform dedicated to growing the nation’s knowledge economy, which will provide major life sciences capacity to the White City Deep Tech Campus. The partnership will lead to a new life sciences and deep tech innovation centre, with more than £200 million invested from Bruntwood SciTech. The new centre will deliver world-class labs and workspaces where deep tech startups, scaleups and global businesses can co-locate, collaborate, and grow.

11. According to recent analysis for Imperial by WPI Economics, in the last five years the number of deep tech businesses in the White City area has increased by 76% while jobs in these sectors have risen by nearly 220%, demonstrating the role of universities like Imperial in creating highly-skilled employment. Between 2019 and 2023, deep tech businesses in White City secured just over £1 billion of investment funding which, on a per firm basis, is six times the level of funding for comparable deep tech businesses across the rest of the UK.

12. Imperial supports the role of Local Growth Plans in bringing together partners to identify and drive forward the emerging and established sectors that have the most potential to drive growth locally and for the benefit of the wider economy, in support of a national Industrial Strategy. We are working with the Greater London Authority, as well as with London councils, businesses, universities and other stakeholders to identify the high growth sectors – including life sciences, clean energy and green tech, AI, security sciences and quantum – that will create the greatest competitive advantage for London and the UK, as part of the London Growth Plan. This collaborative, locally tailored strategy enables a practical approach to identifying and unlocking the levers for growth, developing partnerships to open up longer term opportunities, building a shared narrative to articulate London’s offer and bring in inward investment, and join up and inform the related policies needed to achieve this shared ambition.

31 January 2025