Helen Goulden OBE
CEO, The Young FoundationA story of creativity – and why our national renewal depends upon it.
What the UK lacks in economic performance, we make up for in a proven capacity to drive creative change.
With our enviable reputation for research and development, we’ve retained our ranking as fourth in the world for innovation, despite our economic travails. But rhetoric of the UK as a scientific superpower often falls short of reality, even as public spending on R&D sees an uptick.
Meanwhile, the UK has some of the highest levels of inequality in Europe, and the need to address our entrenched geographical disparities across almost every economic and social policy area has climbed the political agenda in recent years. ‘Levelling Up’ – or whatever we will call it after the General Election – must remain our North Star, whoever resides at Number 10.
But redirecting resources and investment into ‘less-reached’ regions occupies many public institutions, as well as central government – including the £8 billion public funder, UKRI, who committed to increasing investment outside the Southeast of England by 40 per cent by 2030. And where public investment flows, private sector investment often follows.
The Base of the Pyramid
Will that redirection of innovation funding make any difference? Because the truth on the ground is that it is very expensive to be poor in this country. If you’re on a lower income, you’ll often pay more for your energy, your phone, your credit. This ‘poverty premium’ has been a focus for the charity sector for a long time, but it persists.
Taken together, this combination of opportunities and challenges lays the path for the nation to harness our creativity – and our reputation for it – to dramatic effect. What kind of innovation might deliver economic gain while also tackling our societal issues? That should be our challenge. And how might those solutions, models, and approaches also be exported beyond our shores? Because while the UK may be in a pretty parlous state, our problems are in no way unique. Many are shared, to varying degrees, with other countries – from poor housing and an ageing population to the rise in obesity and long-term health conditions, and the existential crisis that is climate emergency. The list is long.
Rising to the Challenge: R&D
Another uncomfortable reality to skew the narrative is that private sector innovation to serve a poorer population has often been exploitative – most notably, the direct targeting of high-cost credit to poorer households. Similarly, the transition to net zero carbon emissions, as it’s currently conceived, is creating products and services that are more expensive – if not outright unattainable – for poorer people. Over time, this will become more deeply entrenched, as people get stuck with old technologies and products they cannot afford to replace, while the cost of maintaining them rises.
If we, as a nation, can commit to supporting innovation for new, sustainable products and services that explicitly and ethically support people on low (or no) incomes, we are on the road to meeting triple goals – improving economic, social, and environmental outcomes for households. The narrative in many large businesses has shifted from whether they have a social responsibility to how they deliver it, yet, at this point, only seven of the top FTSE 100 companies report that their investment in R&D meets sustainability goals. My prediction is that this would rise across all businesses, if the Government pushed the need to innovate for all, not just some, of our population.
This ‘base of the pyramid’[1] approach to successfully serving lower-income consumers has a clear and effective track record in the global South – and warrants much more serious consideration on our shores. As does Jugaad – or so-called ‘Frugal Innovation’ – which had its day in the sun after the 2008 financial crisis here in the UK but has its roots in India as an inherently flexible, cheap, and participatory model.
Why Participation?
Flexible and cheap sounds great, but what’s the value of a ‘participatory’ approach? If we wish to improve our lot, the kind of scientific, social, and technological innovations we incubate or adopt must be aligned with our biggest societal challenges. That means a more expansive approach to R&D, which includes a broader base of people, docks into the realities of most people’s lives and has ethics (is what we are doing good for people and planet?) at its heart.
If we want investment to make a difference, we need more people to participate in decision-making, because greater investment, by itself, does not equal greater equality or wellbeing. Our research shows that despite the £20 billion investment into ‘levelling up’ localities over 15 years – across Labour, Coalition, and Conservative governments – there was a 0 (zero) per cent change in relative economic advantage in those targeted areas. In other words, if you were poor then, you’re poor now.
Investment, therefore, is necessary but it is not sufficient. With community involvement, however, we tend to see investment working better to meet local needs.
A Shared Endeavour
Whether in business, in our universities, in our communities, or in our institutions, we must get better at participating in and owning our big challenges – whatever power we hold. We need to see the glimmer of hope in our daily lives, in the places we live and work.
The public discourse on the UK is complicated and contradictory. In one breath, it’s that we are entering national dystopia with no prospect of recovery. In the next, it’s that we’re brilliant, still a superpower, and capable of world-beating endeavours. Both those mindsets are profoundly misleading. The UK is neither destined for backwater demise nor winning the race.
But we can make great strides if we create the conditions in which entrepreneurs, social innovators, bold local authorities, communities, people, and universities are empowered, challenged, and supported to build new solutions tackling local problems. There are big political moves to make too – but historically, it is a culture of participation in local, collective innovation and action, as evidenced so well by the political scientist Bob Puttnam, that is the lead indicator of national renewal.
Britain can set itself a 21st-century innovation challenge to both drive our economic growth and face down some incredibly complex societal inequalities, and so inspire other countries across the world. But it’s reality, not rhetoric, that people trust.
[1] A term coined by Indian-American entrepreneur C.K. Prahalad
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