UK businesses have spent £2bn more on R&D this year – over 10% – according to the Department of Trade and Industry. The DTI’s 2006 R&D Scoreboard showed investment is currently £19.2bn compared with the £17bn reported in the 2005 scoreboard. However, put back the champagne, because about two-thirds of this increase is in the banks, insurance, media and retail sectors just disclosing their R&D budgets for the first time. The last one-third of the increase was a 4% rise in R&D spending by the top 800 UK companies. This is lower than the European average of 5.6% and the 30.5% in Taiwan.
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Mike Butcher (M.B.E.), formerly Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder of TheEuropas.com (Top 100 listing of European startups); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Startup Coalition. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.
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