The National Center for Universities and Business (NCUB) recently published an interesting report on Research to Recovery, where they put forward a series of recommendations for the UK R&D Roadmap 2020 with regards to its responses to the current context of a global pandemic, of post Brexit and beyond. Whilst the importance of R&D to the UK’s future is indisputable, the strategy to enable, lead and stimulate RDI activities and collaborations is being discussed among key stakeholders of the innovation ecosystem as part of this Roadmap.
Many research and reports on innovation studies show how collaborative R&D and Innovation need physical, virtual and cognitive contexts. Universities, Research Institutes, Centres of Excellence, innovation Centres, large innovative companies, SMEs, or start-ups – as places and spaces of collaborative R&D – quite rightly should be at the heart of this Roadmap. Yet there are other physical and virtual places where RDI collaborations start, bloom and flourish. Places and spaces where people meet, share, and create knowledge and novelties: these are scientific and business events.
However, the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) industry is remarkably absent from this current UK R&D strategy. There is no mention of scientific or corporate meetings in the recent discussions around this Roadmap and future strategies. This a worrying observation not only for the thousands of professionals and their suppliers in the industry (one of the hardest hit industries as a result of the Covid19 pandemic) but also for MICE’s main partners: the scientists, researchers, academics, and business professionals. Conferences and congresses have always been important vectors of academic and industrial collaborations and attractiveness. Researchers and companies present their latest works, ideas, technologies, and innovation to their peers on a regular basis. Of course, people publish and communicate about their results in scientific journals and medias as well, which are now digitally accessible to anyone, but meetings & events go beyond that. These events act as showcase for the participants, as well as their host, to set a scientific & innovative reputation for themselves. It is essential for participants to shake hands, meet peers, build trust and camaraderie among their community. In many other countries the economic weight of the MICE industry is now recognized. The direct economic contributions of the MICE industry are significant and so are the secondary impacts and legacies of these events (attractiveness, scientific collaborations, FDI, scientific impact and social impact, etc.) in key / innovative sectors of the local economy. However, when it comes to R&D and Innovation activities, it seems that the MICE industry in the UK is not considered as an important actor in the diffusion of new knowledge, attractiveness of places and contributor to the local innovation ecosystem. We would argue that this industry should be among the top priorities in the recovery agendas of national and local authorities in the UK and across the globe and would like to see this reflected in the UK R & D Roadmap.
