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Shadow welcomes PM’s announcement of financial boost to R&D

On 21st November 2016, Prime Minister Theresa May outlined how her government will get the economy firing on all cylinders by announcing plans to secure the UK’s long-term commitment to research and innovation, including:

-an additional £2 billion government investment per year for research and development by the end of this Parliament

-new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund will help Britain capitalise on its strengths in cutting-edge research like AI and biotech

We at the Shadow Robot Company welcome this news. We’ve had great experience working on research and development projects that have been funded through government streams, and we’d love to see this continue. We feel government investment for R&D is vital to keep the UK at the forefront of innovation.

Credit: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire

In her first speech to the CBI Annual Conference, May announced the new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, overseen by UK Research and Innovation, which will back projects covering a number of priority technologies and help Britain build on existing strengths in research and development.

Despite its strengths in science, Britain has until now been relatively weak on commercialisation, meaning that all too often ideas developed in this country end up being commercialised elsewhere. Government will consult on how the fund can best support emerging fields such as robotics and artificial intelligence. For more details on the announcement, click here, and to read the whole of May’s speech click here.

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