Out-Law News 1 min. read
23 Nov 2016, 11:32 am
The review of the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) will be led by David Connell, an technology entrepreneur who advised the government on the introduction of the SBRI and who is currently senior research fellow at the Centre for Business Research at the Cambridge Judge Business School.
The SBRI offers small businesses the chance to win government funding of between £50,000 and £100,000 to develop new technologies in a test environment, and potentially win a further £1 million contract to develop prototypes.
The review, which is due to report in spring 2017, will "identify the barriers facing small businesses and provide recommendations on how to tackle them", the government said.
UK minister for universities and science Jo Johnson said: "Small businesses across the UK are pioneering new technologies that have the potential to improve the lives of millions both here in the UK and across the globe. The review of our Small Business Research Initiative will ensure we are harnessing the best of this talent and providing additional support where we can to get more ideas to market."
In 2014, in a government-commissioned paper, leading entrepreneur and investor Sherry Coutu said that fast-growing businesses can suffer from "growing pains", such as a lack of skills in the job market to fill posts, a shortage of "leadership capability" to drive growth, problems with expanding into international markets as well as gaining access to finance. These issues prevent UK 'scale-ups' from developing into businesses of truly global scale.
The review of the SBRI was announced by UK prime minister Theresa May in a speech at the CBI annual conference earlier this week. In her speech, May promised the UK government will work “hand-in-hand with business” to deliver a modern industrial strategy, backed by tough corporate governance reforms.