New Report Suggests Innovation Activity In Decline

Until very recently I had no idea that there was such a thing as an ‘Innovation Survey’ but there seems to be a report about most things these days! As the name suggests, the UK Innovation Survey looks at the rate of innovation among businesses in the different regions of the UK.

In the years 2020 to 2022, Northern Ireland businesses innovation activity appears to have declined rather sharply. The surveys findings were that the percentage of innovation businesses in NI in this particular period dropped from 38% in the previous two years (2018 to 2020), to just 32%, similar to where the innovation rate was in the period of 2016 to 2018. Who knows what the innovation rate has been so far since 2022, we shall await the results with baited breath!

The Devolved Regions Emerged The Weakest According To This Research

Here are some of the figures from this latest report, as copied from an article on the Irish News website. It says that:

‘Overall, the survey found the proportion of actively innovating UK firms declined from a rate of 45% in 2018-2020 to 36% in 2020-2022.

‘The devolved regions emerged weakest out of the latest research.

‘Like Northern Ireland, Scotland’s rate also fell to 32% (down from 39%), while the innovation rate among Welsh businesses was recorded at just 31%, compared to 44% in 2018-2020.

‘According to the study, innovation activity in Northern Ireland peaked at 45% during the 2012-2014 period.

‘The 2023 report study suggests 45% of large businesses in the north (more than 250 employees), are actively innovating, compared to 32% of smaller firms.’

You Could Paint A Gloomy Picture But Things May Be Looking Up

Looking at the bare statistics I suppose you could paint a rather gloomy picture of what is happening with the UK economy, but I suspect that things have been picking up over the last few months and there will be more innovation going on within the business community.

You have to remember that Covid-19 really hit the whole business sector very hard and I am sure that, for some time after the pandemic was brought under control, many businesses were put off trying out new things for fear of a recurrence of lockdown. We have also had the cost of living crisis which meant that the public had very little spare cash to spend, which again hit businesses hard up and down the UK. As the song goes, “things can only get better”.