Britain’s greatest economic strength is the ingenuity of its people. With world-class universities, a distinguished history of technological innovation and a global reputation for inventive design, Britain is justifiably proud of its creative firepower. Trinity College, Cambridge has produced nine-times as many Nobel-winning scientists as China.
But Britain’s intellectual vibrancy has been matched by its appalling record of commercialising inventions. Various government reports have examined why the country has been so bad at building global businesses off the back of its technological breakthroughs. Traditional culprits range from managerial incompetence to an overly short-term perspective to a lack of scale-up finance.
Another factor, though, has played a part: many of Britain’s promising technology companies have gone into the maw of foreign buyers. Imagination Technologies, laid low by the cancellation of its contract with Apple, is just the latest, after agreeing a deal with the Chinese-backed Canyon Bridge.