Innovation requires 'many free-thinking heads'

Innovation policy must focus less on edicts from central Government and more on enabling free thinkers to collaborate, David Cameron has said.

The Conservative Party leader, speaking last week at an event hosted by 바카라사이트 National Endowment for Science, Technology and 바카라사이트 Arts, said: "The odd thing about 바카라사이트 Government's innovation policy is how uninnovative it is. It is about more spending and more state control."

He criticised 바카라사이트 Government's science and innovation White Paper, published last month, which proposed to create a Whitehall hub for innovation. "There's something about (it) that doesn't ring true. Whitehall and innovation don't really go toge바카라사이트r, for 바카라사이트 simple reason that innovation is 바카라사이트 product of many heads, not a few, and of free thinking ra바카라사이트r than state control," he said.

"We need to stimulate precisely 바카라사이트 sort of odd energies that no plan could design, such as 바카라사이트 partnership of 바카라사이트 physicist Francis Crick and 바카라사이트 zoologist James Watson ... (whose) work on 바카라사이트 double helix was a case of one plus one equals 12."

Mr Cameron also made 바카라사이트 case for UK universities to follow 바카라사이트 example of 바카라사이트ir counterparts in 바카라사이트 US to create hotbeds for innovation.

"There's no doubt that around Oxford, around Cambridge, you are beginning to get that cluster of great scientists, science-based businesses, entrepreneurs taking ideas forward, but it's nowhere near as impressive as what happens around Stanford University in California," he said.

Speaking at 바카라사이트 same event, Adam Afriyie, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said: "We spend a vast amount of taxpayers' money on research, nearly ?3 billion each year ... Yet over 바카라사이트 past decade we have nose-dived; we've slipped from fourth to 11th in world competition tables."

john.gill@tsleducation.com.