Taking Services Seriously examines how we can help our services firms to become more innovative and more productive.

Key findings

• This research reveals the high levels of ‘hidden innovation’ in some services sectors
• However innovation is confined to a minority of service firms; many are hindered by a lack of skilled personnel or intelligence on markets and technology
• The UK’s services sectors needs to increase its level of innovation if we are to significantly close the productivity gap between the UK and other leading nations
• We need policies to support increased training and development, and the effective dissemination and exploitation of technology

Services have not yet been properly incorporated into our mechanisms for stimulating and supporting innovation. Even our current methods of measuring innovation often under-represent innovation in services.

This is beginning to change: policymakers are recognising that services should be more central to innovation policy.

This report examines how we can help our services firms to become more innovative and more productive.

Authors

Maria Abreu, Vadim Grinevich, Michael Kitson, Maria Savona, Programme on Regional Innovation (PRI), Cambridge-MIT Institute, The University of Cambridge