Three Big Ideas #07

🧮 Shivani H Menon, Deputy Head of Research, Onward

In Onward’s latest report, The British Entrepreneur, we found that high costs were clobbering two groups of business owners in particular – those contemplating growth, and those currently growing. One cost they are especially worried about is the abrupt hike in their tax bills from VAT when they start turning over £90,000 and above. 

Tax exemptions for small businesses are normally welcome. But the VAT threshold is disincentivising growth for businesses whose turnover is approaching the threshold. Nearly 26,000 businesses are hiring fewer employees or refusing additional work to avoid paying a higher VAT rate.

There is a natural tendency among politicians to deal with this problem by simply increasing the threshold further. Earlier this year the threshold was raised from £85,000 to £90,000. Reform UK in their election manifesto even pledged to increase it to £150,000. 

But there are two major issues with this approach. Britain already has the highest VAT threshold in the world, and any further increase will cost the Treasury nearly £50 million for every £1,000 increase in the threshold. Second, increasing the threshold would not do away with the cliff-edge, it would only shift the point at which SMEs begin artificially limiting their growth. 

Counterintuitively, the only approach to reform VAT in a way that eliminates the cliff-edge is to lower the threshold dramatically and introduce a tapered rate that sees businesses with the lowest turnover pay the least VAT. The threshold could be reduced to £30,000 at a 1% VAT rate, increasing gradually until it reaches a rate of 20% for businesses turning over £140,000 or more. 

Tapered VAT isn’t a perfect alternative, nor is it without its own administrative burdens. But coupled with the digital VAT filing system and provisions for more frequent filing for those businesses that see their turnover change frequently, it is the only way to encourage long-term growth among businesses currently choked by the threshold. 

🛫 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

Above, Shivani outlined a proposal to make part of our tax system smarter. In my Three Big Ideas this week, I want to look at one that would do the opposite. Specifically, the suggestion from a group called the Stay Grounded Network and the left-wing think tank the New Economics Foundation to introduce a ‘frequent flyer levy’. As the name of the tax implies, they think extra charges should be slapped on passengers who fly multiple times a year. They argue this is necessary to curb aviation’s contribution to climate change, because higher prices would mean fewer flights being taken and less fuel being burnt.

I’ll park my concerns about the ability to roll this out in practice for now (anyone who has used British Airways’ website lately will know further complexity to booking tickets is the last thing we need), as well as the equity issues (what about immigrants who may need to fly back and forth to see family?), and the impact on business productivity, and so forth. What I want to focus on here is the necessity of this ‘solution’ in the first place. 

Already, the aviation industry is covered by the UK Emissions Trading System, which is a cap and trade scheme that puts a price on each tonne of carbon produced by a company subject to it. Ultimately, if we want to tax airline emissions – as indeed I believe we should! – this is the way to do it. Not only does it more accurately price the pollution generated by individual carriers, it also creates an incentive for them to reduce the carbon they emit in the first place. If they invest in cleaner engines or lighter planes or use less polluting fuels, they can reduce their tax liability. A frequent flyer levy does not have that same pressure to decarbonise factored into every single ticket purchase, because the tax incidence is borne by the consumer alone. 

As the world heats up, it’s understandable to want to reach for every tool we have to tackle pollution at its source. Thankfully, we already have a perfectly sound one in place for aviation emissions – and it means a frequent flyer levy is an idea best left behind on the tarmac.

🚀 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher

In your social media feeds over the weekend, you might have spotted some British policy folks cruising in self-driving cars. No, Wayve didn’t roll out its car fleet on the streets of London overnight. Excited posts were coming from the Bay Area, as some of the finest minds from the “progress studies” community, and their supporters, descended on Berkeley for The Roots of Progress Institute’s inaugural conference.

The term “progress studies” was coined by Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison in their 2019 Atlantic essay. In addition to its core discussion on the need to study and understand the causes of material and civilisational progress, it made an important point: the goal should be to direct action towards progress, not merely to understand its drivers. This is what makes progress studies less of a new academic field and more of a movement. And indeed, most of the content emerging from the progress studies group has a problem-solution angle to it, and proposes to shake things up with more boldness than a regular policy think tank.

But as some from the progress studies community begin to realise, while enthusiasm is something to celebrate, innovative ideas are destined to face the harsh realities of implementation, tied with political will and fiscal constraints of the government departments. Just as not all of the fruits of science will make it from the lab into the real world, some policy ideas are destined to never make it onto the statute book.

One doesn’t need the Californian sun to brainstorm the future from sofas. The UK is no stranger to hosting summits and conferences around science, technology and innovation, more pro-progress groups are beginning to form, and I regularly come across some hackathon taking place. We need to realise what our unique strengths are, double down on them, and not shy away from being loud. Our proximity to Europe, while also having the biggest concentration of top universities and talent of anywhere on the continent, is one such strength to leverage. And we should do so in more publicly open and innovative ways, similar to what, for example, my colleague Anton Howes proposed as a New Great Exhibition. If someone is keen to take an eleven-hour flight for a two-day conference stateside, they're probably just as happy to take a short trip across the English Channel too.

Three Big Ideas #06

❄️ Eamonn Ives, Research Director

It’s about this time of the year that British people enter into a ritual debate – “have you turned on your heating yet?” And though some may tut at those who crack early, nobody in their right mind would expect someone to go without artificial warmth full stop.

So I’ve always wondered why this logic doesn’t apply to air conditioning for keeping homes cool when it’s too hot. And it seems I’m not alone. In a recent blog, the always reliable environmental economist Hannah Ritchie explains in great detail the health impacts of a changing climate. She concludes by saying: “If you’re looking for a challenge to work on over the next decade, innovating on better air conditioning technologies that are cheaper and more efficient, would be very high-impact. Billions of people who would benefit hugely from air conditioning currently can’t afford it.” 

I am sure there’s an entrepreneur or two who’s working on this. But if we think they could benefit from an extra helping hand, maybe we can learn from the policies of the not too distant past about how to stimulate more innovation?

🌠 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher 

I spent last Thursday in the increasingly exciting White City Innovation District, attending the inaugural conference for Imperial’s Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance. The event focused on the many flavours industrial strategies come in, with learnings from the US, Singapore and Sweden, along with deep-dives into sectors where the UK could build a competitive edge, from aerospace and tidal power to biopharma and fine chemicals. 

One recurring point was if and how much room industrial strategy should allow for “white space” when it comes to science and technology. When discussing Industry Transformation Maps for 23 sectors developed as part of Singapore’s industrial policy, Arnoud De Meyer, Emeritus Professor and former President at Singapore Management University, mentioned that officials did wonder how to tackle the need for “white space”, and if they should invest in the 24th sector that is not there yet. The same question was put to a panel of present and former MPs. Chi Onwurah, Chair of the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said that “the challenge for industrial strategy is the sectors of the future”, and that “there is the need for a vision for the evolution of sectors”. 

The same question occupies the finest minds at DSIT at the moment. Yesterday, Science Minister Sir Patrick Vallance told the Lords Science and Technology Committee that protecting and growing the basic curiosity-driven science is one of his five priorities. He stressed the importance of:

“...understanding what percentage of total spend on curiosity-driven research we want to have as a country that is a knowledge-based economy and being explicit about it. That’s where we need to get to for the Spending Review 2025, and try to be much clearer about it. Because it gives the research councils the ability to understand where they can do things a bit differently and take risks on very early research, which might have no obvious application.”

Those who might find the need for “white space” hard to justify shouldn’t forget that many sectoral niches underpinning today’s industrial strategies in different parts of the world were once a product of curiosity-driven research themselves, or, as Sir Vallance puts it, “that is the work that ultimately is the goose that lays the golden eggs that in years to come creates all the economic and societal benefits”. It’s a strategic investment. Today’s oversight might become tomorrow’s missed fortune.

🧠 Philip Salter, Founder

While patriotic Brits might want to focus on the common nationality of Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis, of wider import to humanity is that the latest Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry went to AI researchers. This surely won’t be the last time. Soon it might become the only option. At some point in the future, it may become redundant to give humans prizes altogether.

Dario Amodei, Co-Founder and CEO of AI giant Anthropic has written an essay on how AI could transform the world for the better. Better known for talking about the risks, in the delightfully titled Machines of Loving Grace, Amodei lays it all on the table. Once we get truly powerful AI – a “country of geniuses in a datacenter” – which may be as soon as 2026, in the following five to ten years our world will be turned upside down: “the defeat of most diseases, the growth in biological and cognitive freedom, the lifting of billions of people out of poverty to share in the new technologies, a renaissance of liberal democracy and human rights.” Ideas don’t come much bigger than this. The essay deserves to be read in full. 

As Matt Clancy discusses on X, many economists think technological diffusion takes much longer, but there is no getting away from the fact that there is a growing consensus that we’re on the precipice of something significant. While Amodei is at pains to avoid the language of science fiction, it’s impossible to avoid the convergence. How long before we’re catching crumbs from the table?

Three Big Ideas #05

⚡️ Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher

Ask an investor about the differences between British and US founders, and you’ll likely hear a familiar narrative about the deficit of ambition. They’ll tell you that British startups are not going after big markets, seek an early exit, or are pitching cautious rather than boldly optimistic sales numbers. In a recent World of DaaS podcast interview, when asked what conventional wisdom or advice he thinks is generally bad, Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First co-founder and ARIA Chair) replied:

“There's a very annoying thing that happens in Europe. A lot of entrepreneurs get advice like ‘that’s a good idea, but do something just a little bit less ambitious because then you're more likely to succeed.’ A lot of people have an intuition that there should be an inverse correlation between odds of success and ambition – if you're trying to do something really hard, you're less likely to succeed. But it is much easier to succeed by being more ambitious, because in the end, it comes down to: can you attract talent and can you attract capital? Guess what? They're attracted to ambition. I think that intuition is just wrong and it gets amplified into very bad advice.”

This has made me wonder why founders don’t know better by default: what mechanisms might be at work here, and where else they might be restraining ambition. While not every founder is university-educated, the academic environment does play a role in shaping the mindset and ambition levels for those who are. From undergraduate to doctoral dissertations, filling a “gap in the literature”, no matter how incremental, is prized; supervisors encourage students to aim at “feasible” research above all, instead of letting their ambition roam while their work is still insulated from the pressure of the market or specific grants. This might be pronounced in some disciplines more than in others, affecting the impact we see from research in different fields and its commercialisation potential. It’s not hard to spot the same logic in education even earlier than university. 

Reflecting on a year spent in the Bay Area, Alice Bentinck (Entrepreneur First co-founder) gives a mindset-rewiring steer which, I believe, applies to science as much as to entrepreneurship:

“The remedy isn’t an over-hyped slide that you don’t believe. The remedy is to ask yourself ‘what’s the most ambitious target we think we could achieve and then what would it take to get there?’. Pitch that.”

📦 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

In American politics, an ‘October Surprise’ refers to an unexpected event that occurs in the month prior to the presidential election, and that threatens to hurt the chances of one of the candidates. On 1 October, a strike called by the International Longshoremen’s Association looked like it could prove to be one for Kamala Harris – if it meant supply chains getting gummed up and inflation taking off again. 

One of the demands made by the striking workers was a ban on automation at US ports. You might imagine this would be a straightforward hammerblow to productivity, but a fascinating post by Brian Potter suggests the impact could well be more nuanced. It also got me wondering, how productive are British ports? 

Data from the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index don’t make for pretty reading. Of the British ports it considers, only two – London and Southampton – feature in the top quartile, at 76th and 93rd out of 405 respectively. Every other port ranks deep into the triple digits – Felixstowe is 174th, Teesport 224th, Grangemouth 264th, Liverpool 293rd, Greenock 346th and, last of all, Bristol, coming in at a dismal 368th. These lowly figures mean a typical British port on the index would rank 230th – somewhat lower than the global average.

Economists have known for centuries how important international trade is for the economy, and the critical role exporting can play as a way of boosting productivity within individual firms. Previous research we’ve published has highlighted the pains entrepreneurs face when it comes to selling goods abroad. While it might not trigger an economic miracle, it wouldn’t hurt to nudge the performance of our ports up slightly. 

💡 Philip Salter, Founder

My Big Idea for this week comes courtesy of our Adviser Francis Toye, founder of Unilink Software. He shared a Paul Graham's article from September on Founder Mode to get my thoughts.

In the September article, Graham shares the insights of Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb:

“As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as ‘hire good people and give them room to do their jobs.’ He followed this advice and the results were disastrous.”

Chesky turned to Steve Jobs for inspiration. One thing Graham pulls out is that Jobs used to run an annual retreat for what he considered to be the 100 most important people at Apple. Critically, these weren’t the 100 people highest on the org chart: “It could make a big company feel like a startup,” suggests Graham.

As Graham acknowledges, clearly things need to change as a company scales. And there is a risk that a lot of bad management could be excused as “founder mode”. As Toye wrote to me:

"Extreme Founder Mode has obvious disadvantages: lack of delegation, micromanagement, high staff turnover, reliance on one individual etc., but on the other hand many corporate managers, however well intentioned and experienced, do not have the background to take a founder-led company into a successful growing business."

We still don’t fully understand what defines a great founder or when – and if – a company should transition to being run like a large organisation. Given the rising power of founder-led companies, getting this right (or wrong) could have huge implications for the rate of global innovation and the quality of all our lives.

Three Big Ideas #04

🪨 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

The year is 1882 – Queen Victoria marks her 45th year as reigning monarch, William Gladstone is enjoying his second of four terms in Downing Street, and, at 57 Holborn Viaduct in London, the world’s first coal-fired power station is sputtering into life. One hundred forty-two years – and 4.6 billion tonnes of coal – later, no more electricity will ever be generated from the dirty fossil fuel in Britain again. At 3pm on Monday 30th September, the last remaining coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, was desynced from the grid.

Different reasons explain the demise of coal in Britain. There was legislative pressure, which placed limits on how polluting power stations could be – limits which coal struggled to comply with. Meanwhile, the rise of renewables ensured there were alternative ways to generate the electricity consumers demanded. But perhaps the killer reason was price. From 2013, a carbon price has been applied to the power sector, which levies a tax per tonne of carbon dioxide generated. Coal-fired power stations became increasingly uneconomical – going from producing 40% of Britain’s electricity in 2012 to just 10% in 2016.

Source: Our World in Data

Economists have long advocated the use of price signals as a way to efficiently and effectively achieve policy objectives. Britain’s rapid transition away from coal seems to vindicate them pretty comprehensively. As we look towards cracking other stubborn issues – from congested roads to decarbonising agriculture – the current government should be minded to learn the lessons of the past, recognise the power of prices to incentivise desired outcomes.

📊 David Lawrence, Co-Director, UK Day One

Keir Starmer says his new government’s ‘number one’ priority is growth. We at UK Day One wanted to take him at his word, so we asked 44 pro-growth economists, think tankers and experts to share their views on what Labour’s priorities should be. 

Far at the top of the list was planning reform. However, respondents largely insisted that the growth impact will depend on building housing and infrastructure in or near existing areas of high productivity, particularly London and the Southeast.

Following this was investment in nuclear energy, to bring down energy costs. These are viewed by some as the main driver of Europe’s economic ills vis à vis the US, and bolstering electricity supply is particularly important given rising demand for electricity arising from heat pumps, electric vehicles and AI data centres. Nuclear is also favoured due to its supply of continuous baseload power, which is essential for industry. Interestingly, respondents were more divided about whether the UK should increase investment in non-nuclear renewable energy – and the UK’s ‘green tech potential’ was generally deemed ‘highly overrated’, despite the current government’s prioritisation of green jobs. 

In what will surprise some, another idea that was viewed as ‘overrated’ was access to capital for startups. Where capital is in short supply, as one respondent put it, is more because of “underlying issues making it difficult to create profitable opportunities here with which to generate returns.” Fixing these could prove to be more effective than tinkering with pensions reforms.  

With the Budget just three weeks away, Rachel Reeves’ first meaningful opportunity to shape Britain’s economy is fast approaching. Our survey findings – which you can read in full here – provide a plan for her to build on. 

💫 Philip Salter, Founder

“[W]e should be taking more chances on quite young people, giving them more authority,” Tyler Cowen declares on the excellent Institute for Progress’ Metascience 101 podcast, the latest episode of which looks at how to better fund scientific innovation. 

Tyler adds, “when you think of young people running things – well, who ran the Beatles? There was George Martin and Brian Epstein, but the Beatles ran the Beatles. Paul McCartney had to figure out the recording studio. We don’t call that science, but that was an extremely difficult scientific project that had never been done before. And this guy, who hadn’t gone to college, at age 23 starts figuring it out and becomes a master.”

It’s not just music. The next generation can bring a fresh approach to tackling the world’s most pressing problems, something we’ve consistently argued for at The Entrepreneurs Network. And, as with musicians, though not everyone will become great, a great entrepreneur can come from anywhere (to misquote Anton Ego in Ratatouille). That’s why we’re supportive of organisations like the Junior Achievement, VIVITA, Young Enterprise and the Prince’s Trust who aim to imbue young people with the skills to lead.

Three Big Ideas #03

🥡 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

If you’re a fan of spicy food, the New York Times served up a treat last week. In a fascinating article on ‘The Life-Affirming Properties of Sichuan Pepper’ (paywalled), one extract in particular piqued my curiosity. In 1968, the American government banned imports of Sichuan peppercorns, over fears they posed a biological threat to domestic citrus crops. Some of the numbing spice surreptitiously continued to make its way into the US, but it was generally low-quality and often only sold to Chinese-speaking customers under the counter to minimise detection from inspectors. In 2005, the import rules were relaxed, but the peppercorns still had to be heated to 140°F for ten minutes to kill any potentially harmful bacteria – which dulled its potency. Only years later, when this requirement too was dropped, could the unique ingredient properly showcase its magical qualities. 

New businesses sprang up, now able to freely sell unmeddled Sichuan peppercorns, while existing corporations – including the likes of McDonald’s and Panda Express – got in on the action too. Americans’ appetite for the distinctive properties of Sichuan peppercorns no doubt partly explains why Sichuan restaurants are increasingly muscling in on Cantonese restaurants’ monopoly on the broader ‘Chinese’ food scene in the US.

What this all very tangibly brings home is how regulations can shape our economic possibilities in quite unexpected ways. It can only make one wonder about what other pleasures existing rules may be preventing us from experiencing. In a recent interview with The Telegraph (paywall), Science Secretary Peter Kyle gestures towards one contender – lab-grown meat. Though British regulators have taken some progressive steps forward, startups in the sector remain highly regulated. As with the Sichuan peppercorn, who knows what culinary delights might be in store for us if we gave lab-grown meat more space to flourish?

🇺🇳 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher

Liverpool was not the only destination du jour last weekend. So too was New York, as foreign policy delegates descended on the United Nations (UN) headquarters for the Summit of the Future ahead of the General Assembly this week. The tech policy community had expected the long-anticipated announcement of the new UN AI Office, as recommended in the report from the High-level Advisory Body on AI. But that failed to materialise yet. The closest we get to it in the Global Digital Compact, which was supposed to lay down the plans, is “an international scientific panel on AI and a global AI policy dialogue.” 

The game play change might be a reason. In a shift from the Advisory Body’s interim report, which attempted to craft a UN-led superstructure for global AI governance, the new report calls for a “light touch mechanism,” and says that “the case for an agency with reporting, monitoring, verification, and enforcement powers is not yet made.” The purpose of the proposed AI Office would be to “ensure information sharing across the UN system,” and fill any gaps in the flurry of national, multilateral and global initiatives so that the excluded parts of the Global South could have a say in AI governance. Instead of falling into the trap of directing resources at governing every shiny new thing, the report is a reality check. This course-correction, however, is a far cry from the initial power play.

So, what does the adopted Global Digital Compact leave us with? The international scientific panel on AI is expected to produce an annual report surveying AI opportunities and risks. But the AI Safety Institute (AISI) -led International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI is doing just that. The global AI policy dialogue, another adopted recommendation, is already what the AI Safety Summit, and its sequels, are tasked with. Rather than pooling resources as intended, the UN’s efforts risk adding more layers to an already complex AI governance landscape.

As several reports argued this year (e.g. Onward, The Tony Blair Institute), the international network of AISIs, which have already built impressive capacity, should take the lead in setting standards, including for safety evaluations, and collaborative research efforts on advancing scientific understanding of AI opportunities and risks. And as the first and best-funded one in this network, the UK’s AISI should lead the way in this work.

🧱 Philip Salter, Founder

What do Britain’s recent political leaders have in common with the elites of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Qing Dynasty China and the Polish Commonwealth? Answer – they all tinkered ineffectually while their metaphorical ‘Romes’ burned. That’s according to Foundations, a new essay from our Adviser Sam Bowman, and friends of the network Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes, which is setting British policy discussions ablaze.

The thesis is easy to explain: our economy has stagnated because we have denied it the foundations on which to grow. Investment has been all but banned in housing, transport and energy, effectively prohibiting many of the most valuable investments that could be made in the UK. As such, instead of devising intricate schemes to try to stimulate and crowd in investment, we should focus on simply giving the private sector the platform and permission to build. It’s what we’ve done historically, and it’s what many other countries around the world are still doing.

While the diagnosis is simple, the solutions are less so. Whether it’s unpicking the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA), removing the second staircase requirement, reforming nutrient neutrality rules, or disincentivising lengthy judicial reviews, there is plenty to build on. And yet, while some of this won’t be easy, as the paper concludes, “the hardest things to create are ours already. No government can legislate into being a respect for the rule of law, appetite for scientific discovery and entrepreneurship, or tolerance of eccentricity and debate.”

Three Big Ideas #02

⚛️ Philip Salter, Founder

Energy is the cornerstone of progress. A strong correlation exists between per capita energy consumption and economic output, but this growth has historically come at the cost of increased carbon emissions. Small Wonders, which we released this week, argues that Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) should be part of the solution. These reactors, with a capacity of 300 MW or less, are modular by design — manufactured off-site and assembled on location.

Artificial intelligence will demand vast amounts of energy. The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2026, electricity consumption will exceed 1,000 TWh. Just this week it was announced that Oracle is scoping out using three small nuclear reactors to power a new 1 GW AI data centre. That’s why our report advocates for the co-location of data centres with SMRs, aligning with two of the new Government’s core missions: stimulating economic growth and positioning Britain as a clean energy leader.

Looking back, the true marvel of nuclear power isn’t its potential but the decades-long delay in realising that potential. In 1956, the UK made history at Calder Hall in Cumbria by launching the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station to supply electricity to a civilian grid. As the report highlights, 18 additional nuclear power stations followed, but the most recent one – Sizewell B in Suffolk – was connected to the grid nearly 30 years ago in 1995. Since then, eight Prime Ministers have come and gone, while South Korea has brought 18 new nuclear stations online.

The report also recommends that the UK recognise nuclear regulatory approvals from allied nations. Similar precedents exist in other sectors, such as pharmaceuticals between Australia and Switzerland, food and drug regulation between Canada and the European Union, and automotive standards between the EU and the US. This can even be done unilaterally – as seen in Singapore’s recognition of pharmaceuticals from the US, EU, and UK – and wouldn’t cost the government a penny. Something for the Chancellor to keep in mind with the Budget just around the corner.

👩‍🔬 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher

Last week, I got a spot for a fireside chat between Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First co-founder and ARIA Chair) and Tom Kalil (Renaissance Philanthropy CEO and former Deputy Director for Policy at the White House Office for Science and Technology under Presidents Clinton and Obama), organised by UKDayOne and TxP. 

The dialogue ranged from institutional innovation and research funding to industrial strategy and technological diffusion. But if I were to highlight just one point, it would be Tom’s answer about a skill gap between the UK and the US: 

“Many US universities are really significantly increasing the number of courses in AI, machine learning and data science. And not only people who would just focus on that, but people who are genuinely bilingual, that is, they have both deep domain expertise and this sort of computational skills as well. And it would be important for UK universities to benchmark how they are doing in this area vis-à-vis world-class peers.”

In a field like engineering biology, for example, this means that having the best biologists alone won’t cut it – we also need more people who know how to combine biology with engineering expertise (and there is evidence that the UK struggles here). Having already secured an early edge – built on a scientific pedigree and exciting companies spanning from new materials to novel foods – we can’t afford to let it slip.

Bilingualism is likely to develop fairly naturally in many disciplines, where there is a strong computational precedent. Computing principles have already been part of biological workflows for decades. Chip design is also a computational playground. In the social sciences, a shift into advanced computational methods has made economists valuable hires for tech companies. But this won’t be the case for many other fields. Especially with AI tools lowering the skill barrier, there is no excuse for not being more intentional in preventing gaps from forming. 

So, what could a game plan for a comprehensive computational shift involve? One part of it is a curriculum catch-up. This means degree programmes, starting from the undergraduate level, with training in applied computational methods and writing software for research, done in a way that is tailored to each field.

At a more advanced level, there is room for translational postdoc programmes, which, as Tom noted, some US universities are experimenting with. This, essentially, means that a PhD graduate enters a programme specifically designed to help them bring research from the lab to the marketplace. By extension, this could create a ripple effect back through the academic pipeline – for example, PhD programmes developed with this postdoc route in mind too.

Another part of it is physical social infrastructure: more cross-disciplinary research centres, institutes, and other spaces, such as co-working hubs envisioned as part of the EU’s AI Factories, which will allow startups, scientists and students “to meet and work on common ideas and projects,” creating “an environment that can attract the necessary talented human capital and build vibrant, attractive, and dynamic communities of practice.” The beauty of such spaces lies in their ability to blur traditional boundaries between the fields, with computational thinking as a common language.

💼 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

As well as providing us with cheaper takeaways and convenient rides home, one of the other key benefits that the sharing economy has given rise to is an extra way for people to earn a living. A new paper from Tucker Omberg from Jacksonville University, which analyses the impact of ridesharing on the labour market, caught my eye this week. His headline finding is that “Uber’s arrival to a city resulted in [a] decline in the unemployment rate by between a fifth and a half of a percentage point.” The good news doesn’t stop there either – Omberg also finds evidence that Uber has a positive effect on wages at the lower end of the wage distribution, which he suggests may be due to changes in how workers search for jobs or shifts in bargaining power.

Omberg’s research is one more datapoint proving the importance of the sharing economy, and the tangible consequences it has for consumers and workers alike. It gives us further reason to ensure that the rules that govern it – from worker’s rights to matters of taxation – are fit for purpose. And with the Labour Party about to descend on Liverpool for their annual conference, chatter about the future direction of travel on these issues is gearing up.

Prior to the election, Labour published their ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’. Among many other things, it contained a promise to end the three-tier system for employment status, which classifies people as either employees, self-employed or ‘workers.’ Removing the worker definition, however, could pose significant challenges – as platforms would then likely be on the hook for offering things like statutory sick pay or redundancy rights, while workers using them would be subject to National Insurance Contributions on their earnings. Indeed, according to the Financial Times (paywall), there are fears even from worker unions themselves that an unintended consequence of Labour’s plan could be businesses simply hiring staff as contractors or casual workers.

As was previously noted in research by the APPG for Entrepreneurship, the sharing economy is a unique segment of the overall economy and one deserving of bespoke policy attention. Though the Labour high command promised to table an Employment Bill within their first 100 days in office, it’s critical that enough time is taken to work out the specifics. Even the best intentioned legislation can end up causing trouble if it’s rushed through.

Three Big Ideas #01

🚗 Eamonn Ives, Research Director

Everything’s bigger in America, so the saying goes, and that certainly applies to their cars. An obvious problem with all that extra weight, as a recent article in The Economist explains, is that while supersized vehicles are safer for those inside them, they can pose lethal consequences for anyone else who isn’t. After analysing ten year’s worth of US crash data, they conclude that for every life saved by the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks, there are more than a dozen lost in other vehicles. 

People don’t buy bulky cars to deliberately jeopardise their fellow motorists though. Bigger models are roomier and thus more pleasant to sit in. Part of the extra weight that modern cars have gained is due to modcons like climate control, electric windows and sunroofs. An inconvenient truth about electric vehicles is that they can often be heavier than their gasoline-powered equivalents because of their hefty battery packs. So calls to simply ‘mandate lightness’ would come at a cost to consumer welfare and possibly delay progress towards environmental objectives. 

Fortunately, a technological solution is (safely) hurtling down the road – autonomous vehicles (AVs). Driverless cars promise to eliminate the vast majority of crashes – after all, just 2% of collisions in the UK are due to vehicle defects. The computers that control them don’t get aggressive, tired or drunk – but they are able to talk to each other remotely and have much faster reaction times than humans ever could. An enormous productivity boost could ensue if AVs enable more efficient transportation of both goods and workers. (Say goodbye to the commute as you know it.)  

Earlier this year, the Autonomous Vehicles Act received Royal Assent, which means AVs could be driving on Britain’s roads by 2026. At the end of last month, British AV-startup Wayve announced a partnership with Uber, in which they will integrate their AI into vehicles using the ride-hailing firm’s platform. 

Good news like this should encourage us that a safer, more prosperous future is possible – but let’s not take it for granted. Writing for the Greater London Project, Shakeel Hashim does a great job of sketching out some of the Cheems (for the uninitiated, read this) reasons why AVs might find themselves stuck at a metaphorical red light in Britain. He argues that, despite the AV Act being passed in May, there are still legislative hoops to be jumped through before we can expect driverless cars to be whisking us around. Given the gains that stand to be made, the responsible civil servants must have their feet firmly on the accelerator.

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🎨 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher

Sci-fi author Ted Chiang penned an essay for The New Yorker arguing that “AI isn’t going to make art”, really ever. He writes that “art is something that results from making a lot of choices” and that AI “is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning.” In response, the commentary on social media got so loud it bordered the HR territory for some.

Unlike the caricature that Chiang’s piece sketches, the reality of AI art is more nuanced than typing a prompt into a machine. Like cameras or brushes, AI tools are instruments shaped and put to use by humans to assist in the creative process. It still requires artistic direction and iteration–that is, a lot of choices–and the initial output is rarely the final product. Such works can take days, weeks or longer to refine. The creative core remains human: people shape the message and use AI to express their vision. We don’t think of photos taken with digital cameras, where computer interfaces unlock hundreds of sophisticated and increasingly automated manipulations, as lesser creations than film photos. The medium isn’t the message here, and its choice is neither a yardstick for a work’s artistic merit nor a boundary of what it means to be creative. So is the case with AI – it is simply an evolution of the artist’s toolkit.

AI introduces a new dimension to creativity. And this dimension is an innovative space for human-machine collaboration and hybrid work. Refik Anadol, whose AI-generated art was on display at London’s Serpentine North Gallery this February, described AI as “a thinking brush that doesn’t forget, that can remember anything and everything,” and said he would “invite that AI to my studio, and host and cocreate” with it. Over at the Sydney Opera House, AI-generated choreography instructions keep dancers on their toes, creating a unique performance each night. From Pollock's drip paintings and Arp’s gravity-led collages to Cage's chance operations, there is something about chance that has long fascinated artists, and AI offers a new way to embrace it.

Beyond the “what counts as art” debate lie hard policy questions. No one is under the illusion that permission from every single artist whose work feeds into an AI tool lands in developers’ inboxes. Policymakers will have to grapple with what to do about this. Judging by recent copyright infringement court cases, this won’t be an easy fix. AI-assisted output is usually sufficiently transformed, but using this as a basis for policy is unlikely to satisfy many. One way forward might be infrastructure for detecting content ownership and providing compensation. But this is likely to be hard to implement in practice, especially at scale. As O’Reilly founder and CEO puts it, we need “a virtuous circle of ongoing value creation, an ecosystem in which everyone benefits.” There is a possibility that, when the dust settles, norms might end up shifting. On aesthetic grounds, there is still a long way to go before most AI art is worthy of the name. But the excitement of a new medium in its early days is an opportunity space to be leveraged not binned.

For the road, I’m leaving you with this piece by Vera Molnár, who is considered to have paved the way for generative art. Back in the 1960s, she was one of the first artists to produce computer-assisted drawings.

Vera Molnár, (Dés)ordres ((Dis)orders), 1973. Plotter drawing, ink on paper. Photo: Galerie Oniris, Rennes. Courtesy of Vera Molnár/Galerie Oniris

🌎 Philip Salter, Founder

Our latest report,  Job Creators 2024, reveals that 39% of Britain’s fastest-growing companies have at least one foreign-born founder, with ​​32% of all founders across these companies coming from overseas. Given the UK’s immigrant population is less than half of this, we can confidently conclude – and we do – that immigrant founders are a critical component of Britain’s flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Debates around immigration can become emotional. But facts matter, and they really don’t care about your feelings. That so many of the UK’s most innovative companies are started by immigrants reveals that we are reliant on them for innovation, jobs and economic growth. It also suggests a path to more growth, if we can attract and retain more immigrants like them. The report has eight policy recommendations aimed to target them.

You can measure immigrant entrepreneurship in all sorts of ways. Before our work, the most common approach was to look at the percentage of those born outside the UK who are registered as directors of companies. The claim here was that the higher percentage proves immigrants are more entrepreneurial.

However, Governments understandably care about jobs and productivity and this measure doesn’t account for the economic impact of these businesses. Also, some of this could be ‘necessity entrepreneurship’, which might include immigrants who are excluded from employment due to discrimination. This certainly wouldn’t be something to celebrate.

The methodology we used was inspired by another report in which SyndicateRoom partnered with Beauhurst to track the 100 startups that have seen the greatest growth in valuation. In other words, a list of companies which private markets have taken the biggest bet on. Critically, unlike many lists of top companies that are put together with additional motives, e.g. PR,business development, it passed the smell test, including the likes of Darktrace, Deliveroo and Monzo.

Statistics can have a memetic quality – Rishi Sunak regularly quoted our finding that in 2019 that half of fastest-growing companies had an immigrant founder. That’s now dropped to 39%. Luckily, we know how to get it back up where it belongs and what that would mean for economic growth.