The UK is usually well regarded for its innovation so I was astounded to read today that no UK firms are included in the Thomson Reuters list of the 100 most innovative organisations.
The list was published by analysts at Thomson Reuters IP & Science and included listing for European countries such as France and Germany and of course plenty of entries for Asia and North America.
The Thomson Reuters 2014 Top 100 Global Innovator methodology is based on four criteria: overall patent volume, patent grant success rate, global reach of the portfolio and patent influence. The report claims that these organisations are driving new breakthroughs, creating new jobs and igniting the global economy.
The lack of UK businesses on the list is down to the fact that it spends less on R&D as proportion of GDP compared to European rivals. Apparently, the UK only spends 1.7 % of GDP on R&D, whereas Sweden spends 3.4%, the Netherlands spend 2.2% and China 2%. Thomson Reuters IP & Science go on to suggest that the UK needs to step up its investment in order to be competitive in the long term.
Although this report highlights the fact that the UK needs clearly needs to plough more investment into R&D, there’s surely also a case to say that the UK needs to get a little better at its own PR and shouting about its innovation and technological developments. From medicine to science and technology there’s a lot of amazing innovation going on in this country, isn’t it time the world found out about it?
Fiona Whyatt has worked in B2B PR for many years. She loves blogging!
