Levidian welcomes UK Budget announcement, calls for a new R&D strategy

We welcome the government’s announcement of more funding for R&D across the life sciences, automotive and aerospace sectors, but it still needs to go further.

Whilst the UK is above OECD average for R&D funding, it is behind the US, Japan, and Germany, and this has an impact on firms looking to grow.

At Levidian, we spend a significant part of our revenue on R&D because it enables us to continue pushing at the boundaries of what we can deliver for our customers around the world – enabling LOOP to be deployed in new and different ways, continuing to learn about graphene’s application into other materials, and looking at where climate tech can be used to maximum effect. Therefore, we want the UK to go even further on R&D.

We want to see a new R&D strategy that underpins partnerships between firms, higher education institutions, and Government.

While initiatives such as expensing have allowed us to spend more on research, we still rely on the broader knowledge-base that exists across different institutions; this can only be exploited if government brings the community together through coordination and long-term planning. We called on the Chancellor to do more for companies heavily involved in developing technology in our Budget submission, but it is now critical that the Chancellor goes further on the following:

• National strategy for R&D taking the UK to G7 average by 2030.

• Annual national R&D conference bringing together capital markets, higher education institutions, and businesses.

• Commitment to permanent expensing from all parties – enabling increased private sector research spending.

If the UK wants to catch up to its competitors, create more jobs and upskill a generation in science, technology and mathematics, more investment in R&D will be key.