Ways in which government can lead in innovation

1. 1. Investment in Research and Development (R&D) and;
2. 2. Policy moves that incentivise innovation.

• In 2021, the US government gave Apple ($891m), Samsung ($1.2B) and Disney ($570m) subsidies to name a few companies. The justification for these was that the money would go towards building R&D centres, relocation of corporate offices along with new office campuses which will in turn lead to new jobs and opportunities.
• Last year it was reported that China was working to give out $145B in subsidies to companies operating in it’s semiconductor (chip manufacturing) industry. The justification here is that China is not in the best of relations with the US right now and they have to ensure that their chip manufacturing catches up to the USA’s. That way if the tension escalates, China has less dependency on the US and has less to lose in the event of an outright falling out between the two companies. In the first example it was job creation, here it’s national security or sovereignty.

• In 2017, the German government invested $440m, in four projects overseen by its Education and Research Ministry. The projects focused on environmentalism with Ariadne set out to help German politicians understand “whether certain energy measures were politically viable.” ENavi was created to determine which specific energy interventions were most likely to be realized, given social, technological, economic and political constraints.
• The UK government recently announced a £42.7m investment for research into the development of tools/services supporting mental wellbeing in adults and children. The research will be carried out by the National Institute for Health Research.

The issue of the satellite was just to buttress the point about funding research and development. There is a lot that happens at universities that we are not aware of. We don't even know what these brilliant academics are doing and they aren't able to commercialise the ideas. At least on this occasion those working in the area of space research will see their ideas being realised and supported by government.

And we're not even talking about a very expensive satellite. When we say satellite people think of space shuttles costing billions of dollars. Forget that. A space satellite could be this tiny [gestures] but the technology and quality of research that goes into is of the highest quality and that's what we're stimulating. That's the idea.

You want R&D to result in something and we (government) have just selected something in the space R&D sector and its a satellite.

-Mthuli Ncube (Zimbabwean Minister of Finance)

1. Promotion of free trade;
2. Encouraging skilled migration;
3. training workers in certain fields;

• The Asian Development Bank Institute conducted a study in Korea in which 61% of respondent companies found said that the FTAs put in place by the government were helpful.

• One of the most prominent of these schemes is the USA’s H1-B Visa - a work visa that allows companies within the US to hire foreign workers with specialised skills to work within the US for a specified period. In 2021, USA approved of 4 million visa applications under this scheme. Countries like Canada, Australia and UK also have similar visa schemes.

• Chinese province Guangdong is said to have 150+ technical schools and colleges and over 550 000 students - most of whom come from rural households and don’t pay tuition.
• In 2019, Chinese government announced a vocational training program that would see them investing US$14.8B in upskilling the countries work force. The program targeted 50 million workers with a focus on “key employment groups” and “poverty-stricken workers”.