Lord Davies of Abersoch announced on 23 October that UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has helped to attract an estimated £500 million in R&D investment into the UK in the last two and a half years.

The Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business will visit the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, near Oxford, where 4,500 people are employed in 100 organisations. The campus has plans to expand to create a further 5,000 jobs.

Lord Davies said:

“The UK attracts the most R&D investment in Europe. We have the right business environment, strong intellectual property protection, world-class talent, great creativity and strong R&D base.

“Internationally, the competition for R&D investment is intense, and winning this investment is vital for the UK’s future economic prosperity. It is a tribute to the brilliance, hard work and ingenuity of our academics and businesspeople that we have achieved this success.“

Lord Davies will visit Magellium, a French company that is one of the newest arrivals to the campus. The company has just started up operations in Harwell with help from UK Trade & Investment. Space robotics and space exploration are among the fields in which they operate.

The European Investment Monitor reported in May that the UK was the number one destination for R&D investment in Europe. The UK’s R&D expertise and its universities are major attractions.

The projects facilitated by UKTI vary in size from one-off research projects to large facilities employing hundreds of people. They are spread throughout the country.

R&D investments in the UK include: Pfizer, the world’s largest drugs company, which announced plans to spend up to $60 million on a stem cell research centre in Cambridge; Cybersource Corporation, a leading provider of electronic payment and risk management solutions, which set up a Belfast R&D centre; and US aerospace giant Boeing, which signed an agreement with Cranfield University in Bedfordshire to create an Integrated Vehicle Management Centre of Excellence.

 Life sciences, which account for a quarter of total R&D investment in the UK, will be a theme of Lord Davies’ visit to Oxfordshire. The region has generated 23 Nobel Prizes for medicine and chemistry.  

He will visit Oxitec, a spin-off from Oxford University, that is carrying out work to eradicate mosquito-borne dengue fever, a disease that costs over $5 billion to tackle every year from which 2.5 billion people are at risk.

He will also meet Glide Pharmaceuticals. This firm has developed its Glide SDI™ - Solid Dose Injector, which delivers vaccinations without needles, and recently took part in trade missions to Japan and India.

In London on Friday, UKTI is organising an event called “Innovation Nation” at which the UK's Innovation Map will be unveiled. This complete picture of UK's innovation organisations demonstrates why the UK does well at generating new products and services for global industries.

R&D factfile

• The UK has four of the world’s top six universities: Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London and Oxford University (Times Higher Education Supplement 2009).
• UK research remains the most productive and efficient in the G8 (the International Benchmarking Study of UK Research Performance 2009, October 2009).
• The UK has the largest life sciences sector in Europe. Five of the world’s top 20 bestselling pharmaceuticals were developed in the UK, and all the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies have R&D and/or manufacturing facilities in the UK.
• The UK has the second largest concentration of R&D and clean energy incubators.
• R&D investment in advanced engineering was £27 billion in 2008.
• The space industry supports up to 70,000 jobs in the UK and contributes nearly £7 billion to the economy.

Notes for Editors

Media contact:
For more information, contact Tessa Fras in UK Trade & Investment Press Office on 020 7215 8483 tessa.fras@ukti.gsi.gov.uk

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is the government organisation that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s economy – acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UKTI offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For more information visit: www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk | www.youtube.com/UKTIWeb | http://blog.ukti.gov.uk | www.flickr.com/ukti | http://twitter.com/ukti

Back to newsroom

Back to top