Retired former professor of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy at the University of Manchester. Nanotechnology, polymer physics, regional economic growth.
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2025 highlights on my blog Soft Machines:
-On UK economic stagnation
-why the UK's new nuclear build programme failed
-good & bad reasons for growing UK manufacturing
-scenarios for the future of AI
-Moore's law
-university/R&D policy for hard times
softmachines.org/?p=3218
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A reminder that the fundamental problem of the UK economy, predating Brexit & Covid, remains the collapse in productivity growth since the global financial crisis.
This underlies stagnant wage growth, struggles to fund public services adequately, & arguably our sour politics
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By 2030, all but one of UK's fleet of nuclear power stations will have closed down, but replacement plans delayed again, with "yet another competition to gather further evidence"
The inability of UK state to get anything done is verging on the pathological
thetimes.co.uk/article/delay…
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A sobering graph in the FT this morning. This is the real world consequence of poor productivity growth - a decade & a half of stagnant wage growth.
Nothing will change unless we do things differently.
ft.com/content/85971473-d76a…
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No sign of a recovery of productivity growth in latest UK figures.
This 15 yr long stagnation underlies all the UK's difficulties, stagnant wages, difficulty funding public services.
Why would we expect this to change, if we don't start doing things differently?
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The most important plot for understanding UK politics & economics now - the collapse in productivity growth since the mid-2000s.
Nothing that governments of last 15 years have done has made a material difference, & if we continue doing the same things we'll get the same result.
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Great graphic from @jburnmurdoch in the FT this morning.
Without London, the UK is a poor country, compared to the USA & NW Europe.
ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa…
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Investors warn lack of availability of lab space in Oxford & Cambridge is driving companies to USA.
If more growth in Oxford & Cambridge politically unfeasible, we should build the innovation & skills systems in UK cities, like Manchester, that can grow
ft.com/content/397a75aa-3047…
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The economic mess we're in was a long time building. Not, at root, caused by Ukraine war, pandemic, or even Brexit: weak economic growth has given us an economy without resilience to cope with these shocks.
Last decade & a half has seen worst GDP/capita growth in living memory
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"spending on capital projects and research and development would be the early targets for savings"
From a government that claims to put the need to restore the economy to growth above all else, difficult to imagine anything more counterproductive.
ft.com/content/b2b69e74-311a…
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No no no! It’s 50% of our *electricity*, not our energy. Majority of UK energy use is still directly burnt oil & gas, with ~80% of our total energy use fossil derived. The Dept of Energy should know this by now!!!
The UK is a world leader in renewables. Last year more than 50% of our energy came from low-carbon sources as we move towards #netzero emissions.
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Two points on today's GDP figures.
1. What matters for prosperity of individuals & sustainability of public services isn't GDP, but GDP per capita - worse than GDP, because of population growth
2. What matters isn't q-by-q growth number, but long term trend - which is terrible
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Important & rightly praised thread on why UK's problem is lack of demand for skilled people, not lack of supply. Result of chronic underinvestment in UK & resulting economic stagnation
Some important additional context: post-GFC divergence in economic performance between UK & USA
NEW: we need to talk about UK graduate wages, and the idea that Britain sends too many people to university.
American readers should stick around for the UK/US comparisons 👀
Let’s start with this: the UK graduate wage premium has fallen substantially over the last 25 years
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Does the UK's problem of stagnating productivity stem from 2008 & the global financial crisis, or were the roots of the malaise already in place earlier in the 2000's?
I increasingly suspect the latter.
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If the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine goes into widespread use, it will represent a coming of age for nanomedicine. The mRNA is formulated in a lipid nanoparticle, to protect it & allow it to enter the target cells. Not first nanomedicine in clinical use, but first really big impact.
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A naive person might think that if a country stops investing in the future, everything will seem fine for a decade or two, but then things might start falling apart...
(from productivity.ac.uk/research/…)
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Personal news: I’m moving to @OfficialUoM, to be professor of materials physics and innovation policy. Looking forward to working with new colleagues in both science & policy, & continuing strong advocacy for science & innovation for productivity growth & regional rebalancing
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The UK's stagnation in agricultural productivity a reminder that developing & implementing new technology is important across whole economy.
R&D shouldn't just be about AI, quantum & nuclear fusion - in a successful modern economy, every sector should be a tech sector.
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Taking Anglofuturism Seriously.
A blog post in which I welcome the ambition of a loose online movement which doesn't regard the UK's economic stagnation as inevitable. But I argue that reversing this needs a more critical analysis of our political economy
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Sorry to be the single issue bore on this, but the reason that the fraction of student loans recovered is much less than anticipated when fees were increased in 2012 is that average wages have grown much more slowly than expected, in turn because of flatlining productivity...
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Only in Soviet tractor factories is productivity the outcome of Stakhanovite hard graft.
Productivity should be the outcome of good organisation, high capital investment, & continual product & process innovation, creating products & services that people will pay good money for.
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Still no sign of recovery in UK labour productivity. This is the most fundamental issue facing the UK economy; if we don't do anything differently, there's no reason to expect things to change.
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For thirty years, the developed world failed to invest in its future, with the UK by far the worst offender.
Living off one's capital is never a sustainable long-term strategy!
Important piece from @MESandbu
ft.com/content/3a8731bc-aad3…
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Not one working engineer, technologist or scientist on Office for Students board. Extraordinary and telling omission.
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The overwhelming economic dominance of the UK by London is also bad for London.
If rest of the country (especially its big cities) were more prosperous, there'd be less need for big fiscal transfers, & London could keep more of the money it generates.
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Here's the problem with the UK's "science superpower" rhetoric.
UK total R&D (2019) - £38.5 bn, 1.74% of GDP
China (2021) - £330 bn, 2.44% of GDP
Money isn't everything, but quantity has a quality all of its own...
China's spending on R&D reaches a new high in 2021, equal to 2.44% of GDP (vs 2.41% in 2020). english.news.cn/20220126/dcd…
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Not widely enough appreciated how much the UK is being left behind in the deployment of industrial robots.
Half a million new robots in factories across the world;
2,534 in the UK - fewer than Thailand.
(source ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/n…)
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Another great hope of the UK's tech industry falls into foreign ownership. Not sure what to think of this - clearly Graphcore needs backers with deep pockets to realise its potential, but what stops UK capital markets playing that role?
Ownership = control, and that matters.
Exciting news: Graphcore joins @SoftBank_Group to build next generation of AI compute. graphcore.ai/posts/graphcore…
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The UK's productivity performance between 2010 & 2019 in international context: in the OECD, only Greece & Italy did worse.
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UK "least attractive" location for Oxford PV's factory, & it will list abroad (its pilot plant already in Germany).
Henry Snaith's discovery of organic perovskite solar cells was big UK science breakthrough, telling & depressing that it can't scale-up here
ft.com/content/03e2e207-3245…
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This data is conclusive proof that true levelling up is possible, and on reasonable timescales. It is a massive failure of UK policy that the former DDR has recovered from 40 yrs of communism faster than the English Midlands & North have recovered from 80's de-industrialisation.
The story is that Churchill ordered the destruction of Dresden by the RAF in retaliation for the destruction of Coventry by the Luftwaffe. Communism deepened the damage in Dresden after the war. But since German reunification, Dresden has caught up and overtaken Coventry.
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My long overview of the current state of UK science & innovation policy:
"Science and innovation policy for hard times: an overview of the UK’s Research and Development landscape"
is out as a @TPIProductivity Productivity Insights Paper:
productivity.ac.uk/research/…
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This is why the idea "levelling up" was so important - the UK is poorer than its neighbours, because its big 2nd cities are economically much less productive than cities of similar size elsewhere.
I got the GDP/person data for all the OECD cities in The EU and the UK with more than a million residents. And then I removed Dublin (because the data's daft) and then I made this graph. And now I'll get back to reading British writing/opinions about our cities "pulling ahead".
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Revealing interview with Science Minister Patrick Vallance: he plans to transform UK's research funding agency, UKRI
Closer alignment with government's 5 missions, especially economic growth & net zero, but ring-fence for curiosity-driven research
theguardian.com/uk-news/arti…
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The USA's economy is about 8 times the size of the UK's, but it spends 60x as much on defence R&D as the UK.
The UK & France have similar sized economies & similar defence ambitions, but France spends 4x as much on defence R&D.
From this Nature article
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
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I've been writing a series of blogposts as an overview of where UK science & innovation policy has got to & the challenges it faces.
I planned a four part series, but it ended up being 8 long pieces
Thread with all links:
An index of issues in UK Science & Innovation Policy (1/9)
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V good of @nature to take our mind off current difficulties with some other upbeat cover stories
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V interesting & important - Google to buy 6-7 small modular reactors to power data centres. Particularly significant that these aren't the standard light water reactors - liquid salt cooled
"1st approval for a new type of reactor in USA for half a century"
ft.com/content/29eaf03f-4970…
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V good @FT @timleunig piece, with hard truths about UK economy & what needs to be done about it, relevant to both parties
This para is striking - small firms are lionised, but it's big firms that drive productivity & R&D, & we don't have enough of them
ft.com/content/72c2737d-169d…
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Where has UK's economic growth come from in last 20 years, & where will it come from in the future?
The story is told very clearly in a v interesting section of the Bank of England's latest Monetary Policy report, on the supply side.
A summary thread:
bankofengland.co.uk/monetary…
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The causes of the UK's productivity stagnation are undoubtedly complex & nuanced.
But it seems to me that UK's decision to give up on R&D in the 1990s, & rely instead on North Sea oil and a financial services bubble, might have more to do with it than generally recognised.
Dating the problem is important. UK R&D intensity fell at lot in mid-90's. Productivity growth stopped in the mid-2000s. Other stuff going on as well (I think mild Dutch disease from North Sea oil probably important too) but the time lag seems plausible for a connection.
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My last day at @sheffielduni (wfh of course), after 22 years. It's been a pleasure to work with colleagues in @PhysicsShef & across @sheffielduni in all my roles (inc. as HoD & PVC R&I), & I look forward to continuing connection thru many research collaborations & as an hon prof
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A foundational paper for modern world - the invention of optical fibres
Without them, no internet, no on-demand video, no globalisation/dispersed supply chains
This won a Nobel Prize for Charles Kao, a HK Chinese scientist then working in STL in Essex, a now defunct corporate lab
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The first part of my (possibly overambitious) attempt to give an overview of the many issues facing UK science and innovation policy right now: what are the big problems facing the nation that science and innovation can contribute to solving?
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Quite a lot of discussion this week about the need for the UK to get serious about industrial strategy. Here's a (long) thread of links/threads on the subject...
A big prompt for this has been the changing international policy climate.
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The government not wrong in wanting to get the economy back to growth rates of the 2000's.
To do this, it needs to address drivers of productivity growth:
Innovation (including R&D), skills, infrastructure, reducing UK's regional productivity disparities
I welcome the new administration's emphasis on restoring the UK economy's GDP growth rate to the 2.5% pa we saw before the global financial crisis. The UK's (pre-pandemic) economy was about 15% smaller that it would have been had the 1965-2008 trend continued
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The UK's industrial policy for several decades was not to have an industrial policy. This was a deliberate choice, based on a set of assumptions about the economy & the world that have not aged well.
After Huawei, former GCHQ boss Robert Hannigan tells @BBCr4today a failure of industrial policy left us dependent on China. I’ve been covering this area for 25 years and from Marconi to ARM UK governments have stood by as our best tech firms have either failed or been sold
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"The fundamental problem with Hinkley C wasn’t the fish disco. It was the fact that the UK government wanted the Chinese state to pay for it, and the French state to build it, as the UK state no longer had the will or capacity to do either."
Hugely welcome that the 4 nuclear power plants will have their working lives extended - but we should never have been in the position where we nearly had zero nuclear energy on the grid.
Time to cut back the fish discos and get building new nuclear.
thetimes.com/article/c8cbe27…
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Is the UK economy more R&D intensive than we’ve previously thought? Some very preliminary thoughts from me on the recent revisions of business R&D estimates from @ONS
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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The economist John Cochrane watched the film "Free Solo" & wrote a blogpost about what the success of rock climbing teaches us about economic growth (h/t @DianeCoyle1859 & @TorstenBell).
I'm not convinced, at some length, here (it's been a wet afternoon):
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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If Sunak's hesitation about rejoining Horizon is simply a recognition that, 2 years after the TCA, financial terms need revisiting, fine.
If it reflects a desire by Treasury to micromanage the R&D budget, & an aversion to stable multi-year budget settlements, very much not fine.
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To get productivity & wages growing again, we need to rebuild innovation & R&D capacity outside London & the SE. My new paper suggests how to go about this, with more focus on translational research for health & low carbon energy:
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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The rusting cars and square steering wheels of the 1970’s are legendary - and yet…
Cumulative real GDP/capita growth over the decade that @nickmacpherson2 ran the Treasury, with impeccable orthodoxy, was just 5%.
The economic turmoil of the 70's produced cumulative growth of 21%
Too right. In the end protectionism makes consumers and taxpayers worse off. Subsidising British Leyland and De Lorean in the 1970s and 1980s was not a happy experience. Better to focus on supporting innovation, skills and invetment. #freetrade ft.com/content/b25774aa-99dc…
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"Should Cambridge double in size?"
My blogpost: is it more politically & practically achievable to double the size of Cambridge, or increase productivity of Greater Manchester by 4.2%? (with same effect on UK economy)
& I suggest non-zero sum way forward.
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Comparing the recoveries of the UK & US economies from the global financial crisis & the pandemic.
It looks like there's starting to be a real divergence in the post-pandemic performance.
(Plot is real GDP per capita, indexed to the pre-GFC peak, semi-log plot)
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Very pleased to be joining the government's R&D Place Advisory Group. A good sign that Minister @ASollowayUK is chairing it personally.
gov.uk/government/groups/rd-…
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How's that productivity recovery going? Oh.
(5/7/2019 ONS data).
If we lived in a rational world, the collapse in productivity growth since the global financial crisis would be at the front of all political discussion, the origin of stagnate wage growth & sour politics
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Astonishing upward revision of estimated amount lost to fraud & error in R&D tax credit scheme: £1.13 billion in 20/21 (previous estimate £336 m)
Imagine what HM Treasury would think if the research councils lost £1 billion to fraud
Via @RianCFFWhitton
gov.uk/government/publicatio…
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Important reminder that, for the v necessary sustained increase in investment the UK needs, question is less "can we afford it", more "have we got the capability to do it"?
Rebuilding that lost capability must be a priority.
"Britain has big infrastructure plans. But where are the workers?" - on.ft.com/3RbY33P
Every industrial strategy report out there selling itself on the ability to "create green jobs" needs to think very hard about this
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At root of UK's productivity stagnation is chronic underinvestment:
"Investment means taking a long-term view, sacrificing consumption now in search of higher living standards tomorrow. The UK has preferred “jam today” for 40 years, and we are now suffering the consequences"
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I'm still reading/listening to commentators asserting that the recent ONS upgrade to the UK's GDP figures puts our recent economic growth record in a much better light.
They don't, it's still dismal.
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Important piece from @dsmitheconomics - productivity stagnation is UK's no 1 problem, direct cause of wage stagnation & difficulties funding public services adequately.
Long term industrial/regional strategy needed.
If we carry on doing the same things, we'll get the same result.
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Some preliminary thoughts from me on implications of the new Labour Government for R&D - getting the economy growing, industrial strategy, local growth plans, net zero, health inequalities - & some optimism about Sir Patrick Vallance as Science Minister
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Here's the trajectory of UK govt R&D spending as announced in today's budget.
£22 bn target has been slipped from 24/25 to 26/27...
...but increases are real & substantial
...big jump between 2022 & 2023 - this front-loading needed to attract business investment needed for 2.4%
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Since "long-term plans" are back in vogue, a reminder of the fate of a previous "long-term plan"
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I've just declined an invitation to speak at a for-profit conference in London, because they won't pay my travel expenses from Sheffield, & I don't see why I should find £200 to subsidise their business. Their reply enough to provoke me to @tomforth style militancy...
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In a long blogpost, I ask whether the transhumanists' dream of "uploading" their mind to a computer is possible (no). softmachines.org/wordpress/
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The prospect of two lost decades of pay stagnation, unprecedented in living memory. The underlying cause is the failure of the UK economy to return to productivity growth after the global financial crisis.
From our new report - the living standards crisis will stretch well beyond this winter into next year. Real earnings are forecast to continue falling until at least mid-2023, by which time all real pay growth since 2003 will have been wiped out
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It's 200 yards from the Department of Education @educationgovuk to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy @beisgovuk. It might as well be a million miles.
We won't solve our productivity problem unless we think about skills and innovation together.
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As discussions about a possible bail-out of research universities continue, a reminder that for many unis, the surplus on overseas students is roughly same size as total block grants for research.
The UK's research system has been propped up by this cross subsidy, now at risk.
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Visualising the UK's place in the world:
share of value added in knowledge & technology intensive industries (aircraft; computer, electronic, optical products; pharma, R&D services; software & IT, electrical; IT services; machinery; medical instruments, auto, weapons)
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The Catapult Review is out!
Shorter version: they work, stop endlessly reviewing them.
(But: more collaboration with uni research base, stronger role driving regional clusters for levelling up, more involvement with skills at all levels, work on EDI)
gov.uk/government/publicatio…
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Rolls-Royce job losses - many highly skilled engineers/data analysts - in a v. high productivity sector, illustrate the risk of permanent post-crisis scarring to the economy. Need to redeploy this talent & capacity in areas like low carbon innovation.
Derby is a very productive city. High R&D, advanced manufacturing, an economy more like German cities than most UK ones. The trickle out (more like a flow out) of money from that success makes Derbyshire and Leicestershire very prosperous. But basing so much on planes 'n trains?
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The road from Alasteir Crowley to nanotechnology is direct, running through Jack Parsons and Richard Feynman. A true story, weird enough for @MJohnHarrison:
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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And, as I wrote back in 2019, "If new nuclear doesn’t get built, it will be fossil fuels, not renewables, that fill the gap"
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Here's the corresponding graph for productivity. As @nigel_driffield reminds us, "productivity isn't everything, but in the long run its almost everything". @TPIProductivity
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I'm less of a classical liberal than Tom, & less confident that the UK's current industrial structure is optimal for our future prosperity
But one thing I think he's dead right on - our expensive energy, and the end of our steel industry, are result of deliberately made choices
I am increasingly drifting into the opinion that this is fine. Not good, but fine. We import our energy now instead. Primary steel is imported. Compute and AI training is imported. Fertilizer and food is imported. And we add value at the high end where energy cost doesn't matter.
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How excited should we be about today's upward revision in the GDP figures?
Not very, in the context of a long view of economic growth in the UK, and its crisis of growth, now well into a second decade.
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Great set of reflections on the UK’s deep problems of over-centralisation and regional economic disparities from @ManchesterMill
Featuring deep insights from @oldtrotter @DianeCoyle1859 and @emmerich_mike
open.substack.com/pub/themil…
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"The missing £4 billion: making R&D work for the whole UK".
A report by @thomasforth and me, published by @nesta today. Really grateful to @JJenRae for giving us the opportunity to work together on this project
nesta.org.uk/report/the-miss…
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The UK government published a new Innovation Strategy recently. It's a useful and interesting document, signalling another stage in what could be quite a radical reshaping of the UK's innovation system, but is not yet a strategy, I argue in my blogpost:
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Pt 2 of my overview of big issues facing UK science & innovation policy:
- why 2.4%?
- the UK: good at research, bad at innovation - what's behind the cliché?
- is the productivity of science slowing down?
- on the geographies of science & innovation.
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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It all comes down to productivity growth - or the lack of it. The UK's post GFC economic model is broken, and we have not yet come to terms with that.
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The BioNTech vaccine relies on entirely new technology, using the machinery of our bodies' own cells to make the antigen. I try to explain how mRNA molecules are packaged & delivered to achieve this here:
Nanomedicine comes of age with mRNA vaccines
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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The UK’s top six productivity underperformers - just 6 industry sectors account for 60% of the UK's productivity crisis. My blogpost on the need for sector-by-sector level understanding of what's going on & why innovation is slowing
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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For origins of today's 5G/Huawei tussle, look back to the death of the UK's electronics giant GEC, killed (with a big slice of the UK's R&D capacity) by a preference for making deals over developing better products. @chakrabortty in today's Guardian:
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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A useful counterpoint to those who think that Europe can't do tech; underlines how powerful the Eindhoven deep tech cluster is.
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Great to see Science Minister @CSkidmoreUK endorsing regional "levelling up" of R&D spend in context of overall doubling of public science budget - not North v South, but all parts of UK reaching their potential, driving up productivity & living standards
gov.uk/government/speeches/l…
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It's that time of year where I get my silly putty out, to demonstrate the marvellous phenomenon of viscoelasticity to my @UoMMaterials Materials Science students (action speeded up by x7680)...
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On the £22 billion target for UK government R&D - will the PM's ambitions for the UK to be a "science superpower" survive hard fiscal times? My blogpost:
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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An industrial strategy to accelerate the development of plant-based meats sounds less glamorous than developing nuclear fusion, but it could be just as important in fighting climate change (and quite a bit cheaper), I argue in today's blogpost:
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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Very good to see ex-science minister @SamGyimah making the case for a better balance of R&D spending across the UK: 41% of public R&D goes to just 3 of the UK's 40 subregions.
Details in my blogpost "Making UKRI work for the whole UK":
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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A great thread shining light on just 1 part of the material base of future net zero economy - UK industrial strategy needs to pay much more attention to the speciality chemicals and materials that are where the value will be found in batteries, fuel cells, electrolysers, PV etc
Because the gritty reality of how batteries are made is often skirted over in most reports.
But the deeper you go the more fascinating it gets.
So before we get to the stuff u know about - the gigafactories & lithium mines - let's ponder this place. Why? It's the missing link..
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Really pleased that my parents have just received their Covid vaccination. They report a painless, efficient, brisk but friendly process. So good that the most vulnerable are now being vaccinated, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has made this possible.
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"What next for UK Industrial Strategy?" A blogpost in which I try to interpret some recent announcements from the government - and suggest that whatever the government decides about the future of industrial strategy, it needs to get on with it...
softmachines.org/wordpress/?…
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As GDP bounces back towards its pre-pandemic level, worth remembering how anaemic economic growth was over whole decade+ since global financial crisis. Recent growth in real GDP per capita worst of post-war period, including the notorious 1970's. Why not more politically salient?
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Good piece; like the author, I'm surprised & frustrated at the apparent lack of appreciation by the UK’s political and commentating classes (with honourable exceptions) of how serious the nation’s economic predicament has become.
Me writing in @ForeignPolicy on the growing disconnect between Britain's dominant elite-driven narrative of a successful, well-run economy & the reality as experienced by much of the country's population. The bigger this gap grows, the greater the risk of political instability.
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When Prime Minister said in his speech:
"there are some days when wind & solar are delivering more than half our energy needs"
... it's not energy he's talking about, but electricity. Most of our energy still comes from burning fossil fuels.
V important to get this right.
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In a new report from @nesta_uk out today, @jameswilsdon & I argue that UK science & innovation policy is over-dominated by big biomedical science. We need to look again at balance of types of health-related research - and where we do it.
nesta.org.uk/report/biomedic…
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