Building Blocks: Our vision for securing Britain's entrepreneurial future

Britain is a great place to be an entrepreneur – with many of the world’s most successful founders calling it home. The startups they have launched make a vital contribution to the economy, providing jobs, tax revenue, innovative goods and services and more. But there is a palpable sense that we could be doing so much better. Productivity has plateaued for far too long, causing living standards to stagnate, and evidence suggests the pace of innovation has slowed.

In Building Blocks, we set out our vision statement to secure Britain’s economic future – arguing that focusing on getting the basics right first is the best way policymakers can support entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs Unwrapped

Understanding how Britain thinks about entrepreneurship is vital if we are to build a society which enables and encourages more people to launch a business. In Entrepreneurs Unwrapped, kindly supported by American Express, we sought to do exactly that.

By surveying both those who have never started a business and current founders, we painted a picture of what Britain really thinks about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and revealed where similarities and contrasts can be drawn between the two groups.

Can the UK Become Competitive on Text-and-Data Mining for AI?

Data is the raw resource upon which AI is trained, and the regulations for how data can be used will have significant consequences for the roll out and quality of AI. There is currently a great deal of legal uncertainty about commercial text-and-data mining (TDM) in the UK, and other countries have moved faster than the UK at securing the legal foundations for training AI.

In this short paper, Dr Anton Howes explains what approaches are being taken with regards to TDM around the world, and what British policymakers could learn from them in order to ensure the UK is a competitive place for AI to be developed.

Risk Readiness Report 2023

Risk is part and parcel of being an entrepreneur, and the best among Britain’s startup community are those who can successfully manage and exploit uncertainty.

In our inaugural annual Risk Readiness Report, published with the international law firm Mishcon de Reya, we set out to better understand entrepreneurs’ attitudes to various questions of risk.

Passport to Progress

Talent is evenly distributed but opportunities are not. For many gifted individuals and entrepreneurs, maximising their potential is contingent on the ability to move to where they can best deploy their skills.

In Passport to Progress: A Blueprint for the World’s Most Pro-Innovation Visa System, published in partnership with ABE, Derin Koçer explains how immigration can enhance entrepreneurship and innovation, analyses international visa frameworks, and makes a series of recommendations for improving migration systems worldwide.

Academic to Entrepreneur

British universities are a wellspring of innovative ideas, many of which go on to be commercialised via ‘spinout’ – companies based upon the intellectual property generated by academics. Recently, however, the UK’s approach to spinouts has come under question, and has prompted a government review into spinout policy.

In Academic to Entrepreneur Unlocking the Potential of UK Spinouts, Dr Anton Howes, Eamonn Ives and Sam Dumitriu explore the history of spinout policy, assess its current strengths and weaknesses, and set out their thoughts for a better system of commercialising academic ideas – arguing the case for a shift towards an approach known as Professor’s Privilege.

Operation Innovation: How to make society richer, healthier and happier

The effect of accumulated innovations has transformed the world at a pace that would have been unimaginable to our not-so-distant ancestors. Thanks to the contributions of just a few thousand innovators, society is now far richer, and better equipped to tackle pressing problems – from climate change or pandemics.

This new essay collection outlines some of the fundamental building blocks to achieving an innovative economy – including how to effectively fund research, how to properly regulate emerging industries, how to make it easier to start and scale businesses, and how to raise the status of innovating.

APPG for Entrepreneurship: Space Startups & Scaleups

The space sector has changed enormously over the last few years – increasing in importance globally for economic growth, for security, and for international partnership. As we look forward, ever more of the major challenges we face as a planet will have solutions, or parts of solutions, from space.

In Space Startups and Scaleups, a number of recommendations are made which aim to capture the opportunities on offer, and ensure British entrepreneurs in the space sector can continue to punch above their weight.

Tech Startup Manifesto 2022

Tech startups have been the British economic success story of the past decade. The tech community, just a footnote a decade ago, is now the heart of the UK’s economy. But now there are storm clouds on the horizon. For the startups, there’s a funding crisis – with valuations cut, hiring freezes imposed, and investment drying up. For the UK as a whole, there’s a macroeconomic crisis, a cost of living crisis, and an uncertain growth path for years to come.

In Tech Startup Manifesto 2022, written in partnership with The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), we explore how the new Prime Minister can navigate those storm clouds. By ensuring Britain’s tech businesses have access to the capital and people they need, and a regulatory landscape conducive to innovation, the tech sector can continue to shine in the UK.

A New Model for Science

The importance of science has rarely been higher up in our collective conscience. Medical breakthroughs, made in record time, helped tackle the Coronavirus pandemic head on, while new scientific innovations promise to reduce our contribution to climate change. Ensuring that science is carried out in the best possible way is therefore crucial. 

Focused research organisations (FROs) are an emerging model for transformative science projects which could complement how scientific research is conducted. In A New Model for Science, co-published with the Tony Blair Institute and Convergent Research, we examine what FROs are, and how they could give entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers a new path for developing the sorts of transformative technologies which will be required to tackle pressing public problems. 

Procurement and Innovation

For years, the government has stressed its commitment to helping SMEs succeed. One of the ways in which it does this most obviously is through the money it directly spends on them when procuring goods and services. However, as Chris Haley, Sam Dumitriu, and Aria Babu explain in a new report, under the status quo, the government makes it hard for SMEs and startups to compete with large incumbents, even when they have a better product. 

In Procurement and Innovation, the authors outline what challenges SMEs currently face when bidding for government contracts, before making a series of recommendations on how to mitigate such issues.

Strong Foundations

Due largely to its rigid planning system, the UK suffers enormously from expensive housing and office space. This erodes the budgets of households and businesses alike, but it also harms the economy in other ways. By placing limits on agglomeration, we see fewer of the benefits it can bring for innovation, productivity, jobs, and more. 

In Strong Foundations, Aria Babu proposes a series of recommendations – from Street Votes, to Green Belt reform, to amending Change of Use rules – in order to expand the supply of housing, offices, and lab space, to ensure the economy can be as dynamic and productive as possible.

Digitise the Skies

From inspecting infrastructure, to delivering goods, to growing crops, aerial drones promise to transform our economy. In Digitise the Skies, however, authors Anton Howes and Sam Dumitriu explain that their potential might not be realised without government intervention to make all recreational aircraft electronically visible to drones. 

In this report, we propose that the government should foot the one-off £10 million bill for equipping the UK’s recreational aircraft with onboard communication devices, noting that the minimal investment could remove a major barrier to the advancement of drone technology and drone-led services. It also recommends creating a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State position within the Department for Transport to specifically oversee the growth of the drone industry, and unlock the potential of our skies.

The Way of the Future: Supercharging UK Science and Innovation

Innovation has the potential to transform almost every aspect of our lives for the better, from the healthcare we receive and the food we eat, to the way we travel and how we interact with public services. At the same time, many economists believe we have experienced a great stagnation – with growth in total factor productivity stalling.

A new joint essay collection from The Entrepreneurs Network and The Tony Blair Institute sets out 10 radical science and innovation policy ideas to meet the ambition of making the UK a science superpower.

Honours for Innovators

Raising invention’s status and prestige was crucial to how Britain first got its reputation during the Industrial Revolution as the best place to innovate. Invention came to be seen as a viable and attractive career path, not just financially but in terms of the social standing that could result from it – something that was purposefully cultivated by those seeking to improve the country’s technological prospects.

In Honours for Innovators, authored by Anton Howes and Ned Donovan, the case is made for establishing a new order of chivalry, specifically designed to encourage invention and raise the status of being an innovator in the eyes of the public. The paper sets out the details of how the order might be organised, how its recipients might be chosen, and the costs of setting up and running the order.

Making the UK the best place in the world for AI innovation

The UK is a world leader in AI innovation, and is home to top universities and cutting edge businesses. But there’s no room for complacency, and without further pro-innovation policies, we will miss out on the AI opportunity.

In our new report, former Office for AI Adviser Séb Krier sets out how the UK can do this – recommending, among other things, that the government opens up public datasets, permitting for-profit data and text mining, and working closely with the EU to improve GDPR.  

Fixing Copyright

Unlike other intellectual property rights, copyrighted works enjoy extraordinary privileges, and the advent of recent technological changes is now making it significantly easier for rightsholders to identify infringers and threaten them with prosecution. 

In Fixing Copyright, Anton Howes explains how the current copyright regime could have a chilling effect on the encouragement of creative work, and entrepreneurship more generally. He makes a series of recommendations which would strike a better balance between protecting individuals’ work while ensuring that creative freedoms prevail.

Green Entrepreneurship

Environmental sustainability has shot up the political agenda in recent years. Consumers are increasingly demanding greener alternatives, and innovative companies are developing them.

In Green Entrepreneurship, Eamonn Ives examines how entrepreneurs are helping to deliver not only a more sustainable tomorrow, but also economic growth, exports, and jobs. Throughout the report, he provides a number of policy recommendations which the government could adopt to accelerate the green transition and reap the opportunities it offers.

Cashing Out

New technologies mean it has never been easier to avoid having to use cash, and the transition to a ‘cashless economy’ presents interesting opportunities – for individuals, businesses and the government. But parts of the press have decried the thought of cash vanishing from daily life, and in certain places around the world, attempts to slow the move away from cash are gaining traction. 

In Cashing Out, Fred de Fossard looks at the rise of cashless commerce, argues that politicians should embrace the phenomenon, and recommends efforts to enable going cashless would be a better way to allay any existing fears around a cashless economy. 

The Startup Manifesto

Startups are a key source of dynamism in the economy – bringing new goods and services to market, while experimenting with innovative business models. Ensuring the conditions are right for entrepreneurs to start new companies, and scale them once they have, is therefore critical.

In collaboration with The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), we have produced a manifesto to help create those conditions. The Startup Manifesto proposes 21 specific policies across three key areas: access to talent, access to investment, and regulation.