Some government backed innovation still misunderstood

The MoD’s recent move to open a "pilot centre for defence enterprise" has come under fire within the press. Evidently this new centre for incubation will be located in the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. The proximity to Cambridge and Oxford is not lost although less for university spinouts for security technologies but perhaps more for serial entrepreneurs and investors (angels and otherwise) who can get involved in growing these baby companies.

The purpose of the centre will be to bring together groups of people (investors and innovators) that have been working together in non-defense related curricula for years. The goal is to better support the UK armed forces with novel technologies and there will be inbuilt incentives for individuals, SMEs, and academics to engage with MoD.

It sounds like the MoD is really trying to think outside of the box. "We have worked hard to remove barriers to innovative concepts and change ideas," said Baroness Taylor, the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support. Adding “Industry, big and small, academia, inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers and investors all have something to offer in developing the next generation of military technology. The Centre for Defence Enterprise will provide a vehicle for exposing these opportunities."

We at the Global Security Challenge are firm believers that enabling innovators will not only save money in the long term but it will make us safer. This opinion is not shared by everyone. Lewis Page of the Register argues that any time you try to foster innovation through a business environment you must somehow be greasing palms. His comments on the MOD incubator is that "these baby companies will be so flush with cash by the time they exit a government incubator that they will be the equivalent of flying pigs.”

Mr. Page is fundamentally mistaken in his assumption that governments can only muck things up. Incubators are an important part of creating and sustaining viable businesses. Your correspondent believes in the necessity of supporting security entrepreneurs particularly as they tend to face a more difficult path than others