{"id":48646,"date":"2017-12-18T07:23:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T06:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=48646"},"modified":"2017-12-14T13:15:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T12:15:00","slug":"the-uks-industrial-strategy-has-graduated-from-green-to-white-paper-has-the-situation-changed-for-the-bioeconomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/the-uks-industrial-strategy-has-graduated-from-green-to-white-paper-has-the-situation-changed-for-the-bioeconomy\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK’s Industrial Strategy has graduated from green to white paper, has the situation changed for the bioeconomy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, we reported on the UK government\u2019s Industrial Strategy Green Paper, and what it could mean for the bioeconomy. The operative word was \u201ccould\u201d, as the bioeconomy was rarely directly addressed in the document: the take-home message was a \u201cwait and see\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, almost a year later, and after a consultation period, the government have updated the policy proposals into a white paper, which will form the basis of subsequent policy decisions. Here, we discuss if anything has changed for the bioeconomy between the green and white papers.<\/p>\n

There has been a significant change in the way the policies have been structured: the green paper was built around ten \u201cpillars\u201d, which has been reduced to five \u201cfoundations\u201d and four \u201cgrand challenges\u201d, but the contents remain similar.<\/p>\n

Research & Innovation<\/h3>\n

The centrepiece of the paper is a commitment to Research & Development in the UK, celebrating the country\u2019s position at the forefront of global scientific research. It laments the UK\u2019s past failures to successfully commercialise its developments, but promises to change that. The government has pledged to raise R&D fundng to 2.4% of GDP within 10 years, but perhaps more importantly, they have announced a separate funding outlet in the form of the \u201cIndustrial Strategy Challenge Fund\u201d. This \u00a3725m fund will allow the government to directly invest in sectors and projects where it believes the UK has potential to drive global development. One such sector the paper specifically mentions is \u201cbiotechnology\u201d, which is great news for the UK bioeconomy, particularly in the bio-based chemicals and biopharmaceuticals sectors. Elsewhere, there is the announcement of a \u201csector deal\u201d for Life Sciences. Though the focus is on health, advances in the broad area of life sciences could have positive knock-on effects for the bioeconomy: for example, improvements to genetic engineering could improve microbe-based processes such as anaerobic digestion and algal biofuels. There is also a commitment to grow \u201clife science manufacturing\u201d, with no indication of what this means.<\/p>\n

Small Business Growth<\/h3>\n

Other signs were there that could be encouraging for bio-based companies, particularly SMEs, with \u00a3400m pledged to form a \u201cBusiness Investment Bank\u201d with the aim of assisting SMEs with scaling up. This monetary commitment is no longer present in the white paper, but a review into \u201cthe actions that could be most effective in improving the productivity and growth of small and medium-sized businesses\u201d is promised, alongside a drive to invest billions of pounds into \u201cinnovative and high potential businesses\u201d, although it is not clear whether this will be available to SMEs.<\/p>\n

Another important aspect of successful SME development is the establishment of clusters and networks: these have been successful in the bioeconomy, such as the BioVale cluster in Yorkshire, and the white paper does feature a lot of intended support for clusters, which will be a welcome boost for bioeconomy SMEs, if the right policy support is established.<\/p>\n

Public Procurement<\/h3>\n

In the original green paper, one of the pillars was a commitment to \u201cImproving Procurement\u201d. This presented a great opportunity for UK bioeconomy companies to get involved in the wholesale infrastructure developments proposed in the paper. However, this pillar is no longer present in the white paper, and there doesn\u2019t appear to be an equivalent policy. This is a disappointment, as there was an opportunity, particularly for SMEs, to establish themselves in the public sector, something that has been a rarity thus far in the bioeconomy.<\/p>\n

Clean Growth<\/h3>\n

One of the pillars of the green paper was a commitment to Clean Growth. This remains in the form of a \u201cGrand Challenge\u201d to \u201cmaximise the advantages for UK industry from the global shift to clean growth\u201d. This was covered in much greater detail in BEIS\u2019s recent Clean Growth Strategy, but the intention is to maximise economic growth and minimise environmental impact. This does not intrinsically mean growth of the bioeconomy, as the government\u2019s banner is firmly planted in the camp of offshore wind farms and nuclear power where energy is concerned, and of electric and hydrogen powered cars as opposed to biofuels. However the paper does explicitly express s a desire for the UK to lead development in the bioeconomy, without expounding on what that actually means. A bioeconomy review is due in 2018, and so we will look forward to that with interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, we reported on the UK government\u2019s Industrial Strategy Green Paper, and what it could mean for the bioeconomy. The operative word was \u201ccould\u201d, as the bioeconomy was rarely directly addressed in the document: the take-home message was a \u201cwait and see\u201d. Now, almost a year later, and after a consultation period, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838],"supplier":[2315,3334],"class_list":["post-48646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","supplier-nnfcc","supplier-uk-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48646"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=48646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}