Blog posts
Meet the CSEP Team Series: Dr Arianna Gentilini
Meet Dr Arianna Gentilini, Research Associate in the Economics and Public Policy Department, Lord Sainsbury Fellow in Biopharma Productivity.
Meet the CSEP Team Series: Dr Joachim Taiber
Meet the CSEP Team Series: Dr Nigel Steward
Meet Dr Nigel Steward, Professor of Practice and the Director of the Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance.
Is the UK biopharma sector at risk of sleepwalking into decline?
Author: James Barlow
For years, the UK has traded on its reputation as a “life sciences powerhouse.” This narrative isn’t entirely false: we have world-class universities, our basic science is strong, and the NHS provides a unique testbed for clinical research. Yet behind the rhetoric, the biopharma sector is facing real and immediate challenges.
UK HealthTech Roadshow Unites Industry, Academia, and Government to Shape MedTech’s Future
The government has placed growth at the heart of its mission and in June of this year published its Industrial Strategy. One important issue raised by the Industrial Strategy is the need to better understand the relationship between national sector strategies and the regional areas where firms are located.
The high-level Sector Plans identified the most important city regions and clusters for the given sector. In addition, regional authorities are developing ambitious Local Growth Plans which are supposed to dovetail with the Industrial Strategy Sector Plans. These local plans need to tackle the critical issues that are constraining growth across sectors including poor transport connections, skills shortages and housing.
Using Sector Evidence and Expertise to Improve Medical Technology Regulations, Achieve Better Health Outcomes, and Grow the Economy: CSEP and the UK’s Life Sciences Sector Industrial Strategy
The Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance (CSEP) is a new institute based at Imperial College and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. CSEP strives to contribute to the UK’s Economic Growth by employing rigorous academic research, the latest scientific and engineering knowledge with bottom-up business informed analysis to create innovative, meaningful and actionable sector strategies to create growth in jobs and economic value add.
CSEP analysis has shown that the UK’s HealthTech sector is one of the country’s hidden gems. The UK HealthTech Sector contributes £13.5 Billion of Gross Value Add (GVA) to the UK economy annually and, since 2016 has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19%. Wages, turnover and exports associated with the sector have also grown over the 2016-2020 period at CAGR’s in the 14-19% range. Working in partnership with the Association of British HealthTech Industry (ABHI) and the broader HealthTech businesses community, an industry led strategy to further grow the sector has been created. The sector strategy contains a 6-point delivery plan, with clear actions, timelines and goals that ABHI with CSEP support have been executing this year. Roadshows have been held up and down and across the country to share the strategy and to seek further refinements and guidance from the sector.
From biopharma innovation to biopharma impact: Can the UK compete globally in 2025?
Author: Professor James Barlow
In 2024, the UK dropped out of the top ten countries in global manufacturing rankings.[i] The decline reflects long-standing structural weaknesses that stretch back decades, including a lack of coherent industrial strategy and inconsistent policies, inadequate adoption of innovation and productivity-enhancing practices, and insufficient investment in workforce training. These have left many of our manufacturing industries without a solid foundation for global competition. Compounding these challenges, geopolitical shifts have also led to other countries overtaking the UK – Russia’s surge in defence industry spending, a manufacturing boom in Mexico spurred by Chinese investment seeking to bypass US tariffs, and Taiwan’s continued dominance in semiconductor production.
Supporting the UK’s strengths in aerospace will unlock growth
Author: Professor Rafael Palacios
The UK is one of five countries in the world with the capability to build its own aeroplanes. As an island nation we rely on aerospace more than other countries. So aviation technology here has always developed at pace. We have the third largest sector in the OECD by market share, after the US and France and a healthy pipeline of startup ranging from nanosatellites to large lighter-than-air vehicles. And the operations of companies like Rolls Royce, BAE Systems and Airbus stand as symbols of the sector’s future potential.
Partnerships between universities and industry will make UK AI a success
Author: Dr. Juan Bernabé-Moreno, Director of Scientific Research in Europe, IBM
As IBM’s Director of Scientific Research in Europe, I know what a huge opportunity the AI Revolution represents for the UK economy. But translating that potential into economic growth and scientific progress requires close collaboration between technology companies and universities. That’s why I was delighted last month to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between IBM and Imperial College London, committing us to work together over the coming years on the application of AI technologies to global problems including climate change.