Innovate UK has gone public this year with the research for its list of the top 50 emerging technologies that could shape our future. The object, says Simone Boekelaar, is to encourage industry to look further ahead.
Every two years since its inception, Innovate UK surveys its various scientific communities – those people on the very cutting edge of science and technology across a wide range of sectors – to ask them what new technologies are exciting them.
We also consult with our own internal community, and do a ‘scan of scans’ style meta-analysis of any new reports looking at future technology. We do this so we can understand where to direct our time and energy most effectively, and share this knowledge with Government. This time, we’ve decided to make our research public.
Innovate UK’s 50 Emerging Technologies Report [1] is a sector-agnostic look at the technologies that are most likely to shape our future, based on Innovate UK’s own metrics to determine where to invest our time and money. It includes the tech behind a real-life invisibility cloak, a London-to-Sydney flight in three hours, manufacturing in zero-gravity space, and wormlike robotics for disaster recovery.
Because the report is sector-agnostic, it also allows businesses and investors to explore technology types they would never normally be exposed to in their usual field
By releasing this first-of-its-kind report, we’re hoping to inspire businesses and investors to think further ahead than normal. Most organisations lack the time and resource to project five years into the future, and for many the strategic outlook is much shorter. This report gives you the opportunity to briefly pause and ponder opportunities 10, or even 20 years in the future.
And, because the report is sector-agnostic, it also allows businesses and investors to explore technology types they would never normally be exposed to in their usual field, and even speculate on potential convergences; where two or more seemingly disparate technologies come together in new and interesting ways.
Most critically, though, the report is not intended to dictate a fixed future. We encourage debate and involvement, and disagreement is as helpful to us as agreement.
We’ll be holding a Glimpse of the Future [2] series of events for strategy leaders at SMEs across the country, as well as Technology Deep Dives to host this kind of debate and turn the report into a productive and inspiring dialogue. Please join us!
Simone Boekelaar is head of horizon scanning at Innovate UK
References:
1 ukri.org/news/revealed-the-50-newtechnologies-thatcould-shape-thefuture/
2 iuk.ktnuk.org/events/glimpse-of-the-futurenetworking-events/
