Government launches £88m investment to ‘turbocharge’ UK businesses

The government has announced a new £88m investment in a bid to close the productivity gap between the UK and major world economies.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom have announced the new funding today (October 10), which will aim to ‘kickstart’ productivity within UK businesses.

Part of the Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF), the £88m will be used to harness the power of technology to boost certain sectors as well as create a new productivity institute.

£43m will be used to support research and analysis into how to turbocharge UK productivity levels through a new productivity institute; aiming to tackle barriers such as productivity imbalances between sectors and regions, poor management practices and skills investment.

A further £45m is set to specifically invested into the development of supercomputer software - known as the ExCALIBUR project - to enable hyper-accurate weather predictions, boosting the productivity of sectors such as agriculture, advanced aerospace,outdoor motorsports and pharmaceuticals.

Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom commented: “Productivity matters – if we produce more, we can earn more, as individuals and as a society.

“Today’s investment will allow us to develop pioneering software to harness the power of supercomputers and create a state-of-the-art Productivity Institute.

Professor Jennifer Rubin, executive chair of Economic and Social Research Council, added: “Raising productivity is arguably the greatest economic challenge of our time, and is needed to increase wages and living standards, and to ensure benefits can be spread across sectors and regions.

“This significant investment in understanding what will drive improvements in productivity is an important opportunity for research to make a contribution to improving quality of life and economic performance.”

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