Innovation is fundamentally important in the route to net zero. Innovation will drive transformational change across our economy and society – bridging across products, services, manufacturing, businesses, institutions and infrastructure bodies. Innovation has the capacity to deliver widespread changes to the structures of our society and communities, and to the way individuals live and work.
These themes are acknowledged at UK level in the Plan for Growth and Net Zero strategy and in the region in the Strategic Economic Plan and the work of partners across the region in business, universities and public sector organisations. They are the focus for a range of programmes and actions at both national and regional level with innovation being positioned as a key enabler of these changes.
Government has highlighted the importance of patterns of consumer and business demand as key to the response of policy, demonstrating the critical importance of ‘dialogue’ and the shaping of demand in the processes of innovation.