The British government had experimented with social-innovation funds in previous years. In 2000 Tony Blair established a Social Investment Taskforce, but it was left to the next government led by David Cameron to implement recommendations, including using money in long-dormant bank accounts to capitalise a “social investment bank”.The Big Society Bank was established in 2012 with £600m of assets to invest.
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Every year millions of pounds are spent by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) to support cancer research in the UK and worldwide, to benefit the public and cancer patients. The CRUK Population Research Innovation Workshops are aimed at identifying new ways to prevent cancer and diagnose the disease earlier. These workshops bring together twenty-five participants from a range of different disciplines to explore cancer challenges in population research, build new collaborations and encourage participants to to develop a unique pitch for a research project that’s potentially funded on the spot.
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In 2016 the UK government announced its intention to publish a National Innovation Plan. Innovate UK represents an integral part of the plan. Innovate UK is an agency that works with individuals, companies and research councils and other partner organisations to search out and support science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy to create profit and new employment opportunities. Innovate UK staff meet with innovators, fund the strongest ideas, connect innovators with the research partners they need to succeed and help innovators to launch and grow successful businesses.
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Financial innovations carry risk, some prove to be beneficial on net, but some others result in adverse outcomes. Authorities must ensure the infrastructure needed to support innovative activities in finance is in place and functioning properly. Some financial developments have been efforts at liberalisation, which allowed for increased competition across sectors and borders. This has created the need for greater resilience. Financial innovations raise a number of policy issues, so it might be advised that innovations be treated on a case-by-case basis. Banks often create entirely new products and trading strategies to deal with financial innovation. This can create a more optimal distribution of risks throughout the system so that risks are shifted to parties with the ability to bear them.
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The Global Financial Crisis (2007-2009) has renewed debate on the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides of financial innovation. The ‘bright’ innovation-growth side argue that financial innovations help reduce agency costs, facilitate risk sharing, improve allocative efficiency and create economic growth. The ‘dark’ or innovation-fragility view has identified financial innovations as the root cause of the recent Global Financial Crisis, creating an unprecedented credit expansion fuelling a boom-bust cycle in house prices, engineering securities perceived to be safe but exposed to neglected risks and by helping banks and investment banks design structured products to exploit investor ignorance of financial markets and exploiting regulatory arbitrage possibilities. Furthermore the gambling industry has also been pointed as victim.
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Innovation starts with a vision, followed by the collection of evidence relating to the possibilities and potential benefits of the concept. This is achieved through the exchange of learning with many people from various education backgrounds. This knowledge exchange reduces ambiguity, improving the chances of success. Innovation is an essential discipline that should be fully recognized within organizations. Unfortunately for many it is not, even those that would benefit from it most. This means that innovation is not driving the business, but instead is reacting to established practises, when it should be the reverse. We live in education-based societies and we need to constantly increase our understanding of the available learning for innovation. The role of learning drives activity and gives direction to innovation. As we create, accumulate and disperse knowledge in open exchanges we become more engaged in seeking an advantage.
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