National innovation strategy: equality impact assessment

Screening

Policy aim

The 21/22 Programme for Government confirmed that the Scottish Government will develop and deliver an Innovation Strategy. The Strategy provides an opportunity to build on the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) and other recent work such as the Muscatelli Report, the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board report on innovation, and the UK Government's Innovation Strategy.

The National Innovation Strategy has an ambitious vision for Scotland to become one of the most innovative small nations in the world within the next ten years. It outlines how we will utilise innovation to grow our economy, create jobs and deliver priority outcomes. Woven throughout the Strategy is a focus on inclusiveness and diversity in all its forms, so that the Strategy is enriched by more diverse perspectives, and in turn more people and communities benefit from the work that follows.

The National Innovation Strategy encompasses the following interlinked actions:

1. We will identify and promote the innovative technologies and sectors in which Scotland has clear potential to lead the world, and we will take a cluster-building approach to supporting these areas to become world leading.

• Scotland's National Innovation Strategy identifies and focuses on sectors and technologies where we can objectively demonstrate the potential to be world leading, mirroring the approach taken in NSET, our Export, Inward Investment and Global Capital Investment Plans.
• Aligned with existing Government commitments and targets, data-driven analysis has identified the innovative sectors in which Scotland has clear potential to lead the world, resulting in the four broad themes that are the current pillars of Scotland's economy: Energy Transition, Health and Life Sciences, Data and Digital Technologies, and Advanced Manufacturing.
• Supplementary expert advice and insights from industry, academia and the public sector, further captures a number of additional new disruptive and radical innovations and more specific sub-sectors and technologies where Scotland has significant potential to be world-leading.
• We will take a systematic approach to the identification, evaluation and growth of priority Scottish clusters, that will promote excellence and encourage best practice.
• Forming a national Scottish Cluster Network with each of our innovation priority area clusters will provide national representation for priority areas, facilitating relationships, knowledge exchange, international connectivity and collaboration.
• We will work with industry, academia and the public sector to evaluate individual needs to address barriers and opportunities, and providing phased tailored packages of support in each priority area to further stimulate growth and innovation.

2. We will adopt an investor mindset to supporting our most innovative businesses – investing where we have a competitive advantage and providing a comprehensive and co-ordinated package of support.

• We will renew our approach to innovation investment support, collaborating across the public and private sectors to design a system that is built around the needs of Scotland's businesses starting with an Innovation Funding Review to be completed by the end of 2023.
• An Innovation Investment Programme, to be announced in early 2024, will ring-fence a significant proportion of public sector innovation funding to be spent and invested in the innovation priority areas, and will take a more coordinated approach to increasing Scotland's share of UK and EU innovation funds.
• We will explore with key partners new models of investment in the form of a customer collaboration innovation grant, and consolidate existing funding streams where possible to improve information and simplify access to innovation support for businesses.

3. We will transform our commercialisation landscape, strengthening the role that our research base plays in driving economic and societal prosperity.

• We will support our universities in their ambitions to design and develop a new Scottish Innovation Fund to assist the development of an investment ecosystem for late stage Research and Development (R&D).
• We will publish a Research and Commercialisation Action Plan, setting out new national guiding principles on how we make a step change in the commercialisation of research.
• The new commercialisation programme will align with existing commitments from the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review (STER) and NSET to develop and build an entrepreneurial mindset and culture across our higher education and research system through Entrepreneurial Campuses.

4. We will rapidly increase the rate and scale at which innovations are adopted in Scotland – by businesses, by communities, and by the public sector.

• A new National Productivity Programme will support more of our Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to innovate and increase productivity through connection with our innovation architecture.
• Creation of an Innovation Adoption Referral Charter will ensure businesses receive warm and effective handovers when being referred between government and agencies.
• The National Productivity Programme will link to the Scottish Cluster Network, so that the wider supply chain of current and potential SME customers and suppliers can be brought into our success in our identified priority areas.

5. We will measure our innovation performance and benchmark this against other nations in an annual Innovation Scorecard.

• We will develop and publish an Innovation Scorecard which will rigorously measure and assess the strength and performance of each level of Scotland's innovation ecosystem, across industry, academia, and the public sector.
• We will also develop suitable metrics to capture and assess participation and impact in the innovation ecosystem including data on equalities, diversity and inclusion. This will include access to finance, funding, jobs and opportunities.

Strategic alignment

The National Innovation Strategy is linked to actions 21 and 22 in Project 5 of NSET's New Market Opportunities Programme^[1]:

• Action 21: "Promote Scotland as an innovative test bed for new technologies and markets and coordinate action across the public sector to leverage our spending power and the CivTech business incubation model to stimulate innovation in our health and other public services. The creation of an International Innovations capability within the Scottish Government will lead on the global economic and societal opportunities created through our expertise in public service innovation."
• Action 22: "Provide public sector R&D grant support and finance to businesses to further increase Business Enterprise R&D spend in sectors with the greatest economic opportunity, in particular our key industries."

This Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) is therefore also closely interconnected with the Programme 2 – New Market Opportunities Equality Impact Assessment of NSET.

The National Innovation Strategy will further reinforce the work done through the Global Capital Investment Plan and Inward Investment Plans to "augment alignment of the wider investment ecosystem in Scotland"^[2] and to "support an economic recovery with fair work, inclusive growth and net zero emissions at its heart."^[3]

Who will it affect?

The National Innovation Strategy will affect how the Scottish Government and its agencies nurture and support innovation activity within Scotland's innovation priority areas. It will not specifically target particular groups or sections of society, but the actions identified in the Strategy are intended to drive Scotland's overall economic prosperity to the benefit of all Scotland's citizens.

Evidence suggests that there are particular barriers to female entrepreneurs that may prevent them from fully participating in Scotland's innovation ecosystem. This evidence has been brought to light by engagement and industry insights from a range of stakeholders over the course of developing the National Innovation Strategy, including a number of female entrepreneurs and women in senior positions in highly innovative businesses.

The Strategy will outline steps to ensure our innovation ecosystem in Scotland is inclusive and diverse, considering how innovation activity in Scotland can be accessed equally by people with one or more of the protected characteristics. Diversity and inclusion considerations have been embedded through the Strategy's vision and language, recommendations, evaluation and metrics of success.

The scope of the EQIA is to consider the impact of the actions within the National Innovation Strategy on a range of protected characteristics as listed in the Equality Act 2010^[4]: age, disability, sex, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, race, and religion or belief.^[5]

What might prevent the desired outcomes being achieved?

Achieving the desired outcomes will be dependent on the successful implementation of the National Innovation Strategy's actions. This in turn will be dependent upon, and will involve a need for, businesses across industries and sectors, higher education institutions, enterprise agencies and other public sector bodies, and local authorities to take action to adapt to the changes and responsibilities which may be placed on them by the National Innovation Strategy's implementation.

There is also a need for committed and coordinated action, and tailored financial models that incentivise and reward inclusion in innovation participation, investment and support, as well as impact. This National Innovation Strategy will prioritise partnership and collaborative working across the entire innovation ecosystem across the quadruple helix of industry, academia, the public sector and communities.

Whilst the Strategy has committed to developing tailored packages of support alongside industry for each priority area to ensure particular barriers to participation in innovation activity are addressed, a number of powers fall outside devolved competency such as immigration controls and taxation. Immigration restrictions may impact the support the Scottish Government can provide to improve attracting more diverse international talent in areas that require a broadening of their talent pipeline. We will therefore work closely with the UK Government on these matters where possible.