The UK government has introduced an international know-how strategy to advertise the nation overseas, strengthening ties with allies and supporting creating nations
By
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Brian McKenna,
Business Applications Editor
Published: 22 Mar 2023 14:45
The Foreign Office and the newly minted Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have introduced an international know-how strategy to advertise the UK overseas.
The announcement stated the UK can be “open, responsible, secure and resilient” in figuring out know-how strategy.
“Now more than ever, it is important that the UK steps up to promote British tech excellence worldwide and takes a stand against the malign influences that seek to use tech against us,” stated international secretary James Cleverly. “That is why we’ve announced this strategy, helping to deliver on our ambition to be a tech superpower by 2030.”
Technology secretary Michelle Donelan stated: “We are a top-class breeding ground for emerging tech, but being a superpower means working with our international partners to turn these nascent technologies into global industries. Our international tech strategy will ensure we deepen collaboration with our allies on the technologies of tomorrow, driving growth and prosperity for the UK while strengthening our national security.”
The government is to nominate some “tech envoys” and can arrange a Technology Centre of Expertise to advertise the UK overseas.
The coverage doc states that know-how will even be included in free commerce agreements, such as these with Australia and Japan.
A key thought is to make use of know-how as a tool of diplomacy. There is a British tech envoy to the US, Joe White, a former co-founder of Moonfruit.com, based mostly in San Francisco. He can be joined by tech envoys to Europe and the Indo-Pacific area.
The government will, it stated, launch a brand new “Technology Centre of Expertise” to share the UK’s “world-leading expertise with partners in developing countries, supporting them to make informed choices on the development and use of technologies in line with our shared principles”.
According to the government assertion, the UK tech sector was value $1tn in 2022, boasting greater than 85,000 startups and scaleups. It claims that extra funding was generated within the UK know-how sector in 2022 than in France and Germany mixed, and that the UK is third solely to the US and China within the worth of its IT sector.
In the foreword to the coverage paper that lies behind the announcement, Donelan refers back to the current refresh of the government’s safety, defence, growth and international coverage priorities, the Integrated assessment. She writes, within the know-how strategy doc: “The Integrated review 2023 reiterates our commitment to science and technology to drive growth and ensure the security of the British people. My department will oversee the UK Science and Technology Framework, which sets out our overarching approach and vision. Now this International Technology Strategy provides the vehicle to deliver the UK’s technology ambition on the world stage.”
Cleverly writes: “The tech sector is … a national asset that gives us an economic and strategic edge. We are proud to be Europe’s top tech investment destination and home to the fourth-largest number of tech unicorns in the world.”
Priority applied sciences for the government embody synthetic intelligence (AI), quantum computing and semi-conductors, as effectively as engineering biology. The latter is described as making use of engineering rules to the design of organic methods, constructing on artificial biology, which is the design and making of organic elements and methods that don’t exist in nature. Engineering biology is alleged, within the doc, to “raise important legal, regulatory, ethical and security considerations, posing a complex foreign policy challenge in balancing economic and social benefits with risks”.
With respect to AI, the coverage doc hails what it describes as the UK’s “thriving AI ecosystem and world-leading research and development. We are a hub for private sector and leading research institutes, ranking third in the world for AI publication citations per capita. Internationally, we are a partner of choice, as reflected by the US-UK Declaration on Cooperation in AI R&D and AUKUS, the enhanced trilateral security partnership signed in 2021 between Australia, the US and the UK”.
Regarding quantum, the doc states: “The UK’s ambition is to turn into a worldwide centre of excellence for QT, shaping the worldwide future of these applied sciences to harness responsibly the alternatives they’ll carry. We are dwelling to many world-leading quantum startups, by an ecosystem supported since 2014 by the National Quantum Technologies Programme. To drive additional growth, the UK is rising our international partnerships in quantum, such as by the UK-US Quantum Statement of Intent signed in 2021.
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…. to be continued
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