Dr David Bozward

Tag: Innovation Ecosystems

  • How AI is reshaping innovation ecosystems and speed to market

    How AI is reshaping innovation ecosystems and speed to market

    Artificial intelligence is changing how new products, services and scientific discoveries emerge. It can search possibilities at enormous scale, suggest unfamiliar combinations and help people test ideas more efficiently. For innovation ecosystems, the opportunity is to connect these capabilities with specialist knowledge and customer needs. The resulting value depends on what organisations can discover and deliver together.

    An innovation ecosystem includes businesses, universities, investors, public institutions and the relationships between them. AI can strengthen those relationships by making knowledge easier to access and experiments easier to organise. Different technologies contribute differently: predictive models estimate promising outcomes, generative systems propose alternatives, and automated laboratories connect computational recommendations with physical tests.

    AlphaFold illustrates the importance of shared knowledge. Developed by Google DeepMind and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, its database provides open access to hundreds of millions of protein structure predictions. A February 2026 update incorporated specialist community datasets, including contributions from researchers at Edinburgh and Glasgow. AI capability is therefore becoming infrastructure that other researchers can extend and apply to their own questions. EMBL-EBI

    For entrepreneurs, such resources can reduce the work required to investigate a biological problem. A new venture could combine public predictions with specialist experimental expertise and customer knowledge to explore a particular application. Commercial opportunities emerge around the shared resource, including testing services and specialist analytical tools. Experimental validation remains essential when assessing whether a prediction supports a useful product.

    Materials discovery offers another example. Microsoft and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory combined machine learning with physics models to narrow more than 32 million potential battery materials to 18 promising candidates. Researchers then synthesised and characterised selected materials. PNNL described commercial suitability as requiring further investigation. The achievement demonstrates how computational screening can direct scarce laboratory resources towards a manageable set of possibilities. PNNL

    The University of Manchester and Unilever have taken a related approach to chemical process development. Their laboratory uses AI informed by physics to select valuable experiments and learn from their results. This creates a continuing relationship between prediction and measurement. Each experiment can improve the model used to choose the next, helping researchers explore chemical processes more systematically. manchester.ac.uk

    These examples suggest a shift in how research partnerships should be organised. Businesses need access to useful data, suitable models and facilities where recommendations can be tested. Universities and technology providers bring complementary expertise. Agreeing how experimental results will be recorded and shared becomes part of the innovation process, because those results inform subsequent decisions.

    AI can also help people combine commercial and technical thinking. A 2026 study in Organization Science reported an experiment involving 791 Procter & Gamble professionals working on product innovation challenges. Individuals using AI matched the performance of teams without it, while AI users produced proposals balancing technical and commercial perspectives. These findings concern an early stage development task, rather than evidence of successful product launches. Organization Science

    For smaller businesses, the ecosystem can provide expertise they could struggle to develop independently. InSignLanguage worked with the STFC Hartree Centre through Innovate UK BridgeAI to investigate British Sign Language to English translation. Support worth £15,000 enabled technical assessment and a proof of concept classifying basic hand gestures. This was an initial demonstration towards a broader accessibility service, with substantial development still ahead. Innovate UK Business Connect

    The entrepreneurial lesson is to begin with a defined unmet need. In this case, the ambition concerns communication for sign language users in public transport. The AI model contributes one capability within a larger service. User involvement, practical integration and a viable commercial arrangement would determine whether that capability becomes something people can depend on.

    New business models may follow from these connections. A specialist startup could provide discovery as a service, helping manufacturers identify promising materials without each customer building a research platform. A university laboratory could offer shared experimentation facilities to several firms. Regional innovation hubs could organise common datasets around a sector’s recurring problems. These are opportunities to investigate through customer demand, with clear agreements on access, ownership and how participating organisations share the benefits.

    AI also changes what people need to learn. Universities should give students opportunities to work with businesses on real problems, compare model outputs with evidence and explain their decisions. Employability increasingly involves combining disciplinary understanding with the ability to question computational results. Employers can support this through placements and collaborative projects that develop judgement alongside technical familiarity.

    Creative diversity deserves attention. A study by Anil Doshi and Oliver Hauser found that access to AI ideas improved evaluations of individual short stories, while the stories became more similar to one another. The experiment concerned writing; wider industrial implications require testing. For innovation teams, it provides a reason to preserve independent thinking and actively seek different customer and specialist perspectives. PubMed

    UK businesses can make a practical start by selecting one expensive uncertainty: which formulation to test, which customer problem to investigate, or which design to prototype. Assemble the relevant expertise, establish the current performance baseline and run a bounded trial. Compare the AI supported approach with existing practice, including the costs of verification and implementation.

    Measure progress through the quality of decisions and what follows from them. Useful indicators include the cost of a validated experiment, the proportion of concepts reaching customer trials and revenue from resulting products. Leadership should fund the route from an interesting output to a working solution. That is where AI can help an innovation ecosystem turn greater computational capability into practical economic and social value.

    References

    1. EMBL-EBI (2026). AlphaFold Database welcomes community datasets, 17 February.
    2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2024). From Simulation to Synthesis, 13 September.
    3. University of Manchester (2025). AI-powered ‘self-driving’ labs accelerating chemical process innovation, 18 December.
    4. Dell’Acqua, F. et al. (2026). The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI and Teamwork. Organization Science.
    5. Innovate UK Business Connect (2026). Improving the accessibility of public transport with AI, 15 January.
    6. Doshi, A. R. and Hauser, O. P. (2024). Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content. Science Advances, 10(28), eadn5290.

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  • 90 New Businesses an Hour: Entrepreneurship Is Alive and Well in the UK

    90 New Businesses an Hour: Entrepreneurship Is Alive and Well in the UK

    It is easy to believe that entrepreneurship in Britain is struggling.

    High interest rates, uncertain consumer demand, taxation, regulation and geopolitical instability create a difficult environment for anyone considering starting a business. Yet one of the most interesting pieces of recent UK business news tells a different story.

    Britain registered 388,922 new companies during the first half of 2026.

    That represents a 9% increase compared with the same period in 2025 and equates to approximately 90 new businesses being incorporated every hour.

    Entrepreneurship in Britain appears remarkably resilient.

    Entrepreneurship thrives on change

    The important question is why.

    Entrepreneurial opportunities frequently emerge precisely when established markets are changing.

    Artificial intelligence is transforming professional services. Cybersecurity requirements are creating new markets. The energy transition is reshaping infrastructure and manufacturing. Defence investment is generating demand across supply chains. Universities continue to produce intellectual property capable of becoming commercial ventures.

    Each transition creates problems requiring solutions.

    Entrepreneurs recognise those problems as opportunities.

    A striking recent example is manufacturing start-up Isembard, which has opened a 160,000-square-foot factory close to Tower Bridge in London. The company intends to manufacture components for drones, submarines, robots, rockets and jet engines, using software-driven manufacturing methods. It currently employs around 35 people and reportedly expects that figure to reach approximately 200 next year.

    This is entrepreneurship applied to one of Britain’s oldest industries: manufacturing.

    Capital is still looking for entrepreneurs

    Investment is also continuing.

    On 23 September, the British Business Bank announced a £50 million commitment to Phoenix Court, alongside institutional investors including M&G, NatWest and HSBC. The objective is to provide growth capital to British technology and science companies capable of scaling internationally.

    Earlier in September, a further £210 million South East Investment Fund was launched, offering loans between £25,000 and £2 million and equity investments of up to £5 million for growing SMEs.

    These developments matter because entrepreneurship requires more than ideas.

    It requires an ecosystem containing finance, skills, customers, universities, infrastructure, mentors and experienced founders.

    The UK already possesses many of these ingredients.

    Indeed, the UK remains the world’s third-largest venture capital market behind the United States and China.

    Entrepreneurship is spreading beyond traditional clusters

    Perhaps the most encouraging development is the geographical spread of entrepreneurial activity.

    London, Oxford and Cambridge remain important innovation centres, yet entrepreneurial capability is increasingly visible across Britain.

    Recent analysis has highlighted how successful British technology companies can become what might be described as “founder factories”. People learn how to build teams, raise investment, develop products and enter international markets inside growing companies. Some subsequently use that experience to establish businesses of their own.

    That effect is increasingly visible in cities including Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, York and Warrington.

    Entrepreneurial ecosystems can therefore become self-reinforcing.

    One successful company creates experienced employees. Those employees become founders, investors, advisers and mentors. Their businesses create another generation of entrepreneurial talent.

    The nature of entrepreneurship is also changing

    The next generation of UK businesses may look very different from those created even ten years ago.

    AI allows small teams to automate administration, undertake sophisticated analysis, develop software rapidly and reach international customers. Cloud infrastructure reduces the capital required to launch technology businesses. Digital marketplaces provide immediate routes to customers.

    This creates the possibility of the highly leveraged entrepreneur: a founder capable of achieving significant economic output with a comparatively small organisation.

    That could dramatically widen participation in entrepreneurship.

    Britain still has entrepreneurs

    Britain undoubtedly faces economic challenges. Entrepreneurship, however, should be judged partly by how people respond to those challenges.

    Nearly 389,000 company registrations in six months suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are still prepared to identify opportunities, accept uncertainty and attempt to build something.

    The bigger policy question therefore concerns what happens next.

    Starting companies is important. Helping the strongest of them survive, innovate, employ people, export and scale is where much of the long-term economic value will be created.

    Entrepreneurship is alive and well in the UK. Our next challenge is creating an environment in which more of those 90 businesses being created every hour can become the successful employers, exporters and innovators of the next decade.

  • English Whisky: A New Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Is Emerging

    English Whisky: A New Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Is Emerging

    English whisky has reached an important inflection point. The UK Government has approved English Whisky/English Whiskey as a protected Geographical Indication (GI), with registration taking effect on 1 October 2026. The decision gives English whisky a recognised geographical identity alongside established protected whisky categories and creates something particularly interesting for entrepreneurs: a new market category around which businesses, brands and experiences can be built.

    The numbers already suggest significant momentum. More than 70 distilleries now produce English whisky, compared with 46 in 2023. English whisky is exported to more than 30 countries, while industry estimates put the value of whisky currently maturing in English casks at approximately £1 billion.

    That combination of regulatory recognition, growing production capacity and international interest creates entrepreneurial opportunities extending far beyond opening another distillery.

    1. Building the English whisky brands of the future

    The most obvious opportunity lies in brand creation.

    Scotch benefits from centuries of accumulated recognition. English whisky has the advantage of being a much younger category whose identity is still being formed.

    Entrepreneurs therefore have space to experiment with provenance, grain varieties, production techniques, maturation, casks and regional storytelling. The English Whisky Guild itself emphasises diversity, creativity and innovation as important characteristics of the developing category.

    The commercial opportunity comes from converting that innovation into distinctive premium brands. Consumers increasingly buy provenance and experience alongside the liquid itself. A whisky connected convincingly to Yorkshire, the Cotswolds, East Anglia or another English landscape can create a proposition combining product, place and story.

    2. Whisky tourism could become a significant industry

    A second opportunity sits outside the bottle.

    Successful whisky regions generate economic activity through distillery tours, hotels, restaurants, festivals, tasting experiences, specialist retail and tourism routes.

    England already possesses a substantial domestic and international tourism economy. English whisky can become another layer within it.

    Imagine regional whisky trails connecting distilleries with local hotels, restaurants, farms and heritage attractions. Entrepreneurs could develop curated tasting weekends, corporate experiences, whisky schools, specialist tours and premium hospitality packages.

    This creates an important economic multiplier. The value generated by a distillery begins flowing into neighbouring businesses and communities.

    3. A new supply chain needs to develop

    Every expanding industry creates opportunities around its core producers.

    English whisky needs farmers, maltsters, barrel suppliers, logistics providers, bottlers, designers, laboratories, technology companies, distributors, exporters and specialist professional advisers.

    This may prove to be one of the most interesting entrepreneurial effects of GI recognition.

    A growing cluster of 70-plus distilleries creates sufficient critical mass for businesses dedicated specifically to supporting English whisky. Digital traceability, sustainability measurement, specialist insurance, cask management, export compliance and direct-to-consumer technology are examples of services that could develop alongside the category.

    The entrepreneurial opportunity therefore includes building the infrastructure around English whisky.

    4. Export represents perhaps the biggest prize

    English whisky is already sold in more than 30 international markets. GI protection provides another mechanism for establishing authenticity and protecting the category as international awareness grows.

    Entrepreneurs should think internationally from the outset.

    Specialist export agencies, overseas distributors, whisky clubs, luxury retailers and hospitality partners could help smaller English producers enter markets that would be difficult to access independently.

    There is also an opportunity for collaboration. Several producers working together can promote English Whisky as a category while maintaining competition between individual brands.

    The first commercial battle is therefore category awareness. Once consumers recognise English whisky as a category worth exploring, individual brands gain a larger market within which to compete.

    5. Innovation can become England’s competitive advantage

    A young industry also has fewer inherited assumptions about how things have always been done.

    That creates room for experimentation.

    The English Whisky Guild has highlighted approaches that allow producers to draw upon brewing expertise and develop distinctive production methods. This connection between brewing, farming, distilling and innovation could become an important feature of English whisky’s identity.

    Universities and agricultural colleges could also participate through research into grains, fermentation, sustainability, sensory science, manufacturing technology and circular production systems.

    English whisky consequently has the potential to become an innovation ecosystem as much as a drinks category.

    The opportunity is bigger than whisky

    The wider lesson is about how entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge.

    A protected geographical identity establishes boundaries around a category. Producers create products within it. Suppliers develop around those producers. Tourism builds around the places. Researchers improve processes. Exporters open markets. Investors provide capital. Consumers gradually develop recognition and trust.

    That is how a cluster develops.

    English whisky appears to be entering precisely this stage.

    The entrepreneurs who benefit most may therefore include distillers, farmers, technologists, tourism operators, exporters, designers, retailers and investors.

    The billion pounds of whisky currently maturing in English casks represents accumulated product value. The greater entrepreneurial opportunity lies in building the ecosystem that will eventually sell, support and amplify it.

    English whisky has secured its identity. The next phase is about turning that identity into businesses, jobs, exports, innovation and regional economic growth.