David Richards MBE is right, the UK’s innovation economy has become addicted to grants, not growth. But the problem isn’t funding itself; it’s design. Innovate UK and its peers were meant to bridge the early-stage gap between research and market, but instead became destinations in their own right. Government now competes with, rather than commissions, the innovators it should empower. The fix is simple: commission outcomes, not applications; fund practitioners, not paperwork.
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