What is an Innovation Platform?

The basic idea of an Innovation Platform was developed by the Technology Strategy Board in 2005.  It built on their desire to use a larger number of government “levers” to encourage and support innovative activity by UK companies.  The Collaborative Research & Development Competitions run under the Technology Programme awarded grants to support the development of technologies in areas deemed to have significant potential, but – no matter how hard the DTI tried – it was still a form of technology push.  What the Board realised was that the various Government departments had programmes to address the various societal problems and that those programmes, made up of procurement, regulation, standards and fiscal measure, all controlled what a future market would be.  If businesses could be made aware of how that particular market would evolve over the next 3-7 years, they could develop new products and services to answer the challenge being addressed.  The other Government department would still own the challenge and make decisions on how it was answered, but the Technology Strategy Board would support UK businesses in their quest to provide the answer.  To do this the Technology Strategy Board had to work closely with the “owner” Government department to understand the detail of their vision and the route they intended to take to achieve it.  They then had to identify and engage with those businesses who could help with these intentions.  This can identify areas where the goals are very difficult to achieve, but it can also identify those areas where the vision could already be achieved – sometimes by technology already available in another sector of activity. 

The Technology Strategy Board launched its two “pilot” Innovation Platforms in November 2005.  A long list had been defined by discussions between the Chief Scientists of the various Government departments, and put through the Technology Strategy Board’s own criteria for funding, and then prioritised by “do-ability” and “impact”.  The two pilots were “Intelligent Transport Systems and Services” and “Network Security”.   This blog is focused on a sandpit run under the Network Security Innovation Platform.