IFS contacts: Rachel Griffith and Laura Abramovsky

Innovation is one of the key determinants of productivity growth and of long-term increases in wellbeing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the UK is good at invention, but poor at the commercial exploitation of new ideas. The UK and the EU lag behind the USA and Japan in R&D expenditure as a percentage of national income, one of the broadest internationally comparable measures of investment in science and innovation. However, the UK performs better on some other measures of scientific innovation such as more academic articles and citations per head than the USA, Germany and France.

IFS research in this area examines the determinants of R&D, innovation, and technology transfer. We are interested in a range of topics such as the process of technology transfer from universities to businesses, between firms and across countries; the links between market structure and innovation and between innovation and firms' performance; and the role of public policy towards innovation and technology transfer, including the effectiveness of the R&D tax credits.