Innovation isn’t just about high-tech processes, says the government. It wants SMEs to pair up with academia to approach the subject more strategically – and is even offering some cash

Small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) are to get funding to help them develop new products and services in partnership with universities. The move is part of a wider drive by the government to make Britain more innovative, outlined in the white paper Innovation Nation.

Published by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), the white paper sets out strategies for boosting the ability of businesses to work more closely with academia and other organisations to help them innovate.

It says Britain’s innovation policy has been concentrated on high-tech manufacturing, and while this remains vitally important, increasingly innovation applies to a wider range of products, services, business processes, models, marketing and enabling technologies used by companies, organisations, industries and sectors.

The white paper says the UK’s strengths include its research base, open economy, excellent universities and good levels of business innovation. However, it needs better skills as well as more investment in R&D and in non-technological innovation.

Proposed initiatives include:

• providing at least 1000 “innovation vouchers” every year by 2011, to help fund SMEs to work with a university, further education college or research organisation to develop a new product or service;

• doubling the number of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between businesses, universities and colleges;

• piloting a new Specialisation and Innovation Fund to help further education colleges unlock workforce talent and to support businesses in raising innovation potential;

• expanding the network of National Skills Academies, with one academy for every major sector of the economy;

• establishing an innovation research centre in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB);

• boosting the ability of small firms to exploit their intellectual property.

Minimum wage set to rise in october

The adult national minimum wage (NMW) rises from £5.52 to £5.73 in October. The rate for 18-21-year-olds will also increase from £4.60 to £4.77, while for 16-17-year-olds the rate will rise from £3.40 to £3.53. The rise will benefit nearly one million low-paid employees, two-thirds of them women.

In the Employment Bill, now before the Parliament, the government is also planning tough new penalties for employers who underpay staff. These include increasing the maximum penalty for non-payment of the NMW to an unlimited fine, with the most serious cases tried in a Crown Court.

Since October 2007 the minimum wage for adults, combined with Working Tax credits and other benefits, has guaranteed an income of at least £292 a week for families with one child and one full-time worker.

Sick notes out, fit notes in

GPs should focus on what employees seeking a sick note can do, rather than what they cannot, says the government. An “electronic fit note” is one suggestion in the new review, Working for a Healthier Tomorrow.

This says that overall, businesses need better advice on helping their older employees maintain a healthy working life. But GPs are not well trained to give this advice and so prefer to err on the side of caution when their patient returns to work. The review recommends that occupational health experts should focus on the healthy employee as well as those off work.

Sickness costs the UK economy about £100bn a year through the loss of 175 million working days. The document is available on the Department of Health website.

New quality mark for industry

Cross-industry body Constructing Excellence has launched a KPImark to recognise companies that use key performance indicators (KPIs) to benchmark their performance on issues such as client satisfaction, safety and energy use.

The award goes to companies that are measuring at least five KPIs using the on-line portal KPIzone.com. This provides comparison against the performance of the rest of the industry, providing organisations with a picture of their strengths and weaknesses.

KPIs are published each year by Constructing Excellence using performance data collected from across the UK construction sector.

KPIs for the M&E sector include client satisfaction in areas such as design, installation, service and quality of O&M manuals.

Source

Building Sustainable Design

Postscript

For more information on Innovation nation go to: www.dius.gov.uk