The UK Government has announced plans to invest £50m in innovative industries and technologies. UK Secretary of State for Business, Dr Vince Cable MP, has unveiled the Innovate UK initiatives to support game changing technologies.
The investment is a part of the Emerging Technologies Strategy 2014 to 2018, which will help UK business and academia in seven areas of technologies including synthetic biology, energy-efficient computing, energy harvesting, quantum technologies, and emerging imaging technologies.
Businesses and academia are expected to discover and create new solutions in every sector which could include a new drug, autonomous sensors or ‘hyper-spectral’ cameras.
The aim is to help universities and organisations financially, by doubling Innovate UK investment in the next four years.
Innovate UK chief executive Iain Graysaid: "Much of Innovate UK’s funding and expertise goes to support business innovation where the commercial opportunities are well understood and the technological challenges known."
"But it is vital that we also look further ahead, scanning the horizon for the breakthroughs of tomorrow."
