i2010
The Information Age Partnership’s (IAP) i2010 working group launched its major report "Delivering i2010: Ensuring the Right Conditions for an Innovative, Inclusive and Competitive UK Knowledge Economy”(pdf) in May 2007, highlighting the need for Government, industry and academia to improve the way they worked together to ensure a strong UK economy.
With major competitors such as China becoming increasingly innovative, the UK risked falling behind if these issues were not addressed. The UK should be embracing a culture of continuous improvement to compete on the global stage.
The group made the claims following its analysis of how the UK could do more to meet the objectives of the European Commission’s i2010 Strategy of delivering an open, competitive and inclusive digital economy in the UK.
Recommendations from the report included:
• Government development of a coordinated national strategy to encourage students to study subjects of national importance such as ICT.
• Academia encouraging more interdisciplinary research with strong ‘blue sky’ commercial elements and accelerating the creation of ‘centres of excellence’.
• Industry looking at its future skills needs and working with higher education to supply them.
• Government, industry and academia considering a joint high-profile public awareness campaign to celebrate ICT achievements.
Gordon Frazer, Managing Director of Microsoft, said: "Skills are a vital component of personal and professional development. However, millions of people are still leaving school without the necessary skills to enter the workforce. Business, academia and Government need to act now, or we will fail not just the current generation of school and university leavers but we will fail to provide the UK economy with the potential to attract and retain high-skill businesses in a fiercely competitive global market."