The UK¡¯s innovation system is a ¡°little bit broken¡± and universities will play a crucial role in fixing it.

This is the view of Richard Jones, pro-vice chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Sheffield, who posed the question in his keynote speech to the Association for University Research and Industry Links¡¯ annual conference earlier this month.

Professor Jones said that the country was in the middle of an ¡°unprecedented slowdown in productivity growth¡± that has ¡°stopped dead¡± since 2008.

¡°Poor productivity growth is a cross-sector problem of what economists call ¡®total factor productivity,¡¯¡± he said. ¡°In the broadest sense this means innovation.¡±

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He said that it was up to universities, as one of the ¡°strongest bits of the innovation system¡±, to do their best to held ¡°rebuild this¡±.

¡°We ought to be proud of our university system, and there is an appreciation [in government] of what we¡¯ve done to maintain this internationally competitive research system we have,¡± he said.

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¡°[However], we shouldn¡¯t be asking what the government can do for us, we should be saying, aggressively, what can we do for government to contribute to national priorities and in particular restoring productivity growth?¡±

He also said that universities have to be quite ¡°ambitious¡± to help fix the issues that society was facing and some would need to change the mentality of their core mission.

¡°If you haven¡¯t engaged deeply with your local enterprise partnership or combined authority by now, you need to get on that really fast,¡± he said. ¡°I think universities do have to help rebuild the innovation system, particularly those of us who live in those places where the economic needs are very obvious.

¡°Frankly this is going to take many universities away from what they think of as their traditional missions and is not going to be totally straightforward.¡±

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john.elmes@tesglobal.com