The UK is one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world and ahead of Germany, France and Italy, according to research published by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2004.
GEM also find the gap between male and female entrepreneurs closing in the UK. Big increases in female business start-up activity have occurred in many of the regions outside London.
Key findings from the report are:
Oxford and Cambridge at fifth and sixth are the world's highest rated universities overseas outside of the United States, according to a ranking of 200 higher education institutions published in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES).
Eight British universities feature in the top 50. London's position as a centre of global educational excellence was also underlined, with four institutions in the top 50; the London School of Economics at 11th, Imperial College 14th, University College London 34th, and the School of Oriental and African Studies 44th.
The UK Government has released its 10 year investment framework for science and innovation and has unveiled a £1 billion boost in
funding.
The framework sets out the Government's ambition for public and private spending on research and development in the UK to rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP over the next decade, and provides annual real growth in public science funding of 5.8 per cent over the 2004 Spending Review period - with science spending one billion pounds higher in 2007-08 than in 2004-05.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, said, “The transfer of knowledge from the science base to UK industry is vital to the future of innovative businesses in this country. We already have an excellent science base - today boosted by an additional £1 billion commitment. The Government must now work with universities, Regional Development Agencies and businesses to boost the transfer of knowledge to industry, bolstering the UK's position as a growing hub for global knowledge-intensive businesses here and overseas." “The transfer of knowledge from the science base to UK industry is vital to the future of innovative businesses in this country.”
A new report from Barclays Bank has suggested that the UK economy will become Europe's biggest within a generation. It is growing at such a fast rate that
the UK will regain the top spot from Germany within 20 years. It would be the first time since 1959 that the UK had held the number one position. Britain
overtook France in 2000 to become the second biggest European economy and is currently the fourth largest in the world.
“The assumptions relating to the UK are deliberately cautious, yet even so the British economy slowly closes the gap with Germany until, early in the 2020s, it becomes
bigger, and thereafter, the gap continues to widen,” said Christopher Smallwood, author of the report.
Germany's economy is bigger than Britain's because its population is a third larger, the report said. But it argued that the gap will narrow as Germany's working age population
shrinks by 20 per cent over the next 25 years from 56 million to 44 million. At the same time, the UK’s working-age population will rise slightly. The report suggested
that the UK economy will grow at between 2.5 per cent and 1.25 per cent a year over the next 20 years. That compares with 1.5 per cent and 0.5 per cent in Germany.
Newcastle, England -- Quand Medical, a Canada-based developer of medical information and alert technology, announced that it has relocated its headquarters from Toronto to Newcastle. Quand has developed a system that uses near field communications -- a combination of radio frequency identification (RFID) and mobile- phone technology -- to deliver detailed information and warnings about medication to patients. Quand director and co-founder Robert Momich said the company decided to move to the U.K. because of the advanced nature of mobile technology development across Europe.
Cardiff: Cegelec UK, a subsidiary of Belgian technological services company Cegelec, is to move to larger premises in Swansea, Wales.
The purpose-designed premises will offer a comprehensive one-stop maintenance centre for all rotating electrical plant and will allow the company to install a vacuum impregnation (VPI) facility. This is a system of applying a protective varnish on motors and generators that have undergone a major overhaul. The development will reportedly safeguard 42 existing jobs and create six additional positions.
Peter Owen, operations manager for Cegelec UK, says: “Efficiency is the name of the game and this new VPI facility will enable us to deliver a better service to industry, help safeguard jobs and make us more competitive.”
Belfast -- Swan Labs, a California-based company that makes tools to unclog networks and increase the speed of enterprise applications, announced that it is planning to hire 40 people in Belfast with a new European centre of operations. Swan Labs said it would invest about £1.8 million in the centre, which will focus on the design, development and implementation of enterprise application optimisation tools. The company said it would also run its sales efforts out of the Belfast office. Swan Labs said it received about £500,000 in support from Invest Northern Ireland for the project.