Can science save the economy?
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Evan Davis and guests ask if now is the time to exploit scientific research more effectively to help business recover from the coronavirus crash. The UK has traditionally been better at basic science research than its commercial exploitation - with examples ranging from computing to the discovery of graphene, where international companies have benefited more from those discoveries. The Bottom Line examines the government’s idea of creating an agency, similar to the legendary US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to invest in, and commercialise UK science and technology projects.
The US agency DARPA, was set up to invest in technology after they got behind in the space race with the Russian launch of the Sputnik in the 1950's. Although the agency's remit is to work on defence projects, several of its discoveries have spawned more commercial uses, most famously the Internet. Now the UK government wants to emulate this success for civil applications in the hope of encouraging new business sectors of the economy, post-Covid 19. Can it work? Evan Davis and guests discuss.
Guests: Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value, University College London Luke Georghiu, professor of science and technology management, Alliance Manchester Business School Arati Prabhakar, former director, Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Naomi Krieger Carmy, head of Societal Challenges Division, Israel Innovation Authority Producer: Julie Ball Produced in partnership with The Open University
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:07.2 | And in this series of the bottom line, |
| 0:08.6 | we're focusing on issues that might preoccupy us post-pandemic. |
| 0:12.7 | And one area of national life that has been under more than the usual scrutiny, |
| 0:17.1 | and which is our theme today, is science and technology. |
| 0:20.3 | Whether it is the achievements of science at spotting therapies like dexamethosone, |
| 0:25.0 | or the wizards trying to write contact tracing apps, not always successfully, |
| 0:29.6 | or the researchers developing vaccines, |
| 0:32.3 | or the brains writing complex epidemiological models behind which the politicians can hide |
| 0:37.1 | when mistakes are made during |
| 0:38.5 | this period. Science is in the public eye. Most of the focus of late has been on what science |
| 0:44.4 | and technology can do to help save us. We'll touch on that. But also, how can we help science? |
| 0:50.7 | What policies promote innovation? Helping us to navigate our way through all of this. |
| 0:55.7 | I have two guests. First up, Mariana Mattecate, professor in the economics of innovation and |
| 1:01.0 | public value at UCL, founder and director of its Institute for Innovation in Public Purpose, as well as |
| 1:07.3 | the author of the entrepreneurial state. Mariana, having spoken to you before about this, |
| 1:12.4 | I get the sense that your mission is to eradicate the idea |
| 1:16.3 | that there's a simple choice between market or government, |
| 1:20.0 | that the two are complementary in the way they work together is important. |
| 1:24.1 | Yes, so what I've been writing about for some years |
| 1:27.0 | is that we need also a better understanding |
... |
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