National innovation strategy: equality impact assessment

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

Have positive or negative impacts been identified for any of the equality groups?

Yes, this Strategy will have positive impacts, providing increasing employment opportunities and access to innovation activity for those with Protected Characteristics.

Is the policy directly or indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010^[85]?

No. There is no evidence within this EQIA to suggest that the policy is directly or indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010.

If the policy is indirectly discriminatory, how is it justified under the relevant legislation?

N/A

If not justified, what mitigating action will be undertaken?

N/A

Describing how equality impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

This Public Sector Equality Duty requires public authorities to, with respect to people with protected characteristics, eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; advance equality of opportunity; and foster good relations between persons who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. This EQIA has examined these three needs and has found no evidence of negative impacts for people with protected characteristics at this time, however we will keep this under review as part of the monitoring of this EQIA.

This EQIA has identified areas where there are potential direct and/or indirect impacts on different groups and where work can be taken forward to promote equality. Examples of where and how our approach to developing the National Innovation Strategy has been shaped and informed by the process of undertaking this EQIA are set out below.

Inclusive innovation

By definition, inclusive innovation "enables as many people as possible to contribute to and participate in innovation and its spillovers."^[86] It is the ambition of the National Innovation Strategy that as many of Scotland's citizens are provided with the opportunity to engage with and access Scotland's thriving innovation ecosystem, and play their part in our journey to becoming one of the most innovative small nations in the world.

Contribution and participation will be considered at all stages of the innovation lifecycle:

• The design of strategies, priorities and mechanisms that empower innovation activity
• The delivery of innovative processes and activities; and
• The diffusion of the benefits and proceeds from innovation throughout the economy.

Source: Opening the Innovation Economy: the Case For Inclusive Innovation in the UK

A number of respondents to the National Innovation Strategy's Call for Evidence highlighted the importance of involving communities and citizens in setting and co-creating innovative solutions to deliver social and socially responsible innovation, as well as the importance of social and community innovation as an important part of the wider innovation ecosystem. This was highlighted as beneficial in achieving societal and economic ambitions. Social innovation was highlighted as particularly important in rural areas of Scotland, as was the role of colleges in widening access to participation in innovation activity.

Therefore the National Innovation Strategy's narrative clearly outlines the importance of involving communities and citizens in resulting cluster activity, in setting and co-creating innovative solutions to deliver social and socially responsible innovation, as well as the importance of social and community innovation is an important part of the wider innovation ecosystem. The Strategy's Cluster Programme and approach to growing priority clusters will therefore be built on collaboration and partnership, including those actors who have a positive impact on widening participation in innovation activity and have expertise in involving communities.

The engagement and discussion about the social aspect of innovation in the Strategy's development process has led to clear examples in the Strategy of social innovation's significant importance to Scotland's rural populations and its positive effect on labour productivity. Highlighting OECD evidence illustrating that the highest productivity gains in Scotland over the last few years came from rural businesses innovating to make better use of resources, the National Innovation Strategy's National Productivity Programme will take a place-based approach to support more of our SMEs to innovate to increase their productivity.

In developing the National Innovation Strategy we have considered "hidden innovation actors" within the ecosystem who are not currently as visible to innovation support and activities. Through the delivery of the Strategy we will take steps to widen access to, and impact of, the innovation ecosystem to break down barriers for female entrepreneurs, stimulate innovative business opportunities for individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, provide equal employment opportunities for those with disabilities in high growth innovation priority areas, and encourage an entrepreneurial mindset in Scotland's young people and promote career opportunities in highly innovative sectors.

Through the delivery of the Strategy we will encourage community and people-driven engagement in Scotland's innovation landscape, to ensure all of Scotland's citizens have the opportunity to contribute in our journey to becoming one of the most innovative small nations in the world.

Recommendation areas and priorities

The following list of recommendation areas and priorities have been shaped by this EQIA.

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

Innovation is multi-faceted, and has broad-reaching impact across a number of interconnecting elements of the economy, society and environment. Measuring innovation activity and its broader impact is therefore complex.

A condensed scorecard of indicators and metrics has been created, to be used with our partners so that we have a clear picture of Scotland's innovation performance against agreed targets over the next ten years. Consisting of ten metrics to measure the different aspects of Scotland's innovation ecosystem, there will also be a commitment to capturing and measuring diversity and inclusion data in each metric.

Where diversity and inclusion data is not currently captured or available, we will undertake work alongside our higher education institutions, industry and public sector agencies to capture and incorporate this data in future.

The Innovation Scorecard will track the following indicators:

• The generation of new ideas within universities and the private sector
  • Patents granted
  • Academic income from business and community interactions
• The movement of early-stage research to being closer to market
  • Risk capital (deals under £10m)
  • Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) jobs (as % of 16/64 labour force)
• The realisation of the early economic benefits of innovation
  • High growth businesses
  • Later-stage equity (deals £10m and over)
• Organisations that are adopting innovation and have become innovation active
  • % of innovation active businesses
• Expenditure on research and development
  • Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) as a % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
  • Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) as a % of GDP
  • Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) as a % of GDP
  • Government Expenditure on Research and Development (GovERD) as a % of GDP

2. 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.

We will work with our innovation priority clusters to ensure that we do not take a narrow approach and that we are incentivising the consideration of people and places in our innovation cluster development, in accordance with the 'Place Principle'.^[87]

As part of cluster evaluation and facilitation process, we will work with our skills and education systems to ensure national alignment to these priorities, that there is sufficient visibility and access, and that we have a pipeline of diverse talent coming through to engage with these jobs and opportunities. This evaluation process will include identifying specific barriers and opportunities for those with protected characteristics in each innovation priority area, seeking out opportunities to widen participation in emerging sectors, and more effectively harness the potential innovative talent Scotland has to offer.

3. 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 take a place-based approach to reviewing the landscape, considering the impact of innovation support across the whole of Scotland including its rural communities. We will ensure innovation funding support is visible and accessible for all of Scotland's innovative businesses, including female and ethnic minority founders.

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

Supported by new evidence and analysis, and linking to other initiatives such as the development of entrepreneurial campuses and UKRI's work on commercialisation, a new Research Commercialisation Framework will consider how best to widen the opportunities for people from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds and communities to participate in commercialisation activity. We will work with our higher education institutions in particular on supporting spinouts led by women and ethnic minority founders.

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

The National Productivity Programme will work over the ten-year lifetime of the Strategy to deliver an ambitious increase in the level of innovation taking place across the whole of Scotland – in raised productivity, improved societal outcomes, and a more inclusive innovation economy.

To help incentivise firms to innovate, we will work with industry to develop appropriate forums and awards to recognise and promote examples of exceptional leadership in business-led innovation. This will highlight firms of all sizes, and individuals from all backgrounds, that have achieved transformative business success by adopting innovation. There will be a clear emphasis on recognising pioneers in underrepresented areas, including firms in sectors with proportionally lower levels of innovation overall and innovators from underrepresented groups.

Programme monitoring and review

We will further ensure that the National Innovation Strategy's programmes are developed with diversity and inclusion at their heart and that suitable metrics and indicators are utilised to monitor this. Consideration will be given to how to incorporate wider societal and environmental impact measures through delivery activity.

This EQIA analysis will be kept under regular review and develop over the ten year lifecycle of the Strategy, seeking to incorporate additional data on equalities, diversity and inclusion as data becomes available.

Delivering innovation

One of the core themes of the National Innovation Strategy is about delivering innovation and concerns three key areas of focus: people, place and partnerships. To fulfil the vision of the Strategy we must ensure that our requirements around skills and talent are clearly articulated and that people and place are considered in the delivery plans.

We will ensure that we are developing and delivering innovation across the ecosystem with an approach that embraces all the diversity of Scotland, its people and its places. We will look at how we can ensure that we are encouraging and enabling partnerships to be formed across disciplines to collaborate on the challenges and opportunities facing Scotland. We will look at how we can build new networks and partnerships across the ecosystem both within Scotland and beyond, and ensure that delivery positively impacts groups with protected characteristics.