Key findings

• There are seven overarching ‘wider conditions’ for innovation. These are: public research, openness, entrepreneurship, competition, access to finance, demand for innovation, and skills
• The UK performs well compared to other leading innovative countries in entrepreneurship and competition
• However there is room for improvement in public research and openness
• The UK appears to lag behind other leading countries in access to finance, demand for innovation and skills

Innovative firms drive the economic growth and prosperity of the UK.

While internal factors such as good management and strong leadership may affect a company's capacity to innovate, the economic and social conditions in which companies operate can also spur or stifle innovation efforts.

In order to expand the number of home-grown innovative firms, and to attract the most innovative international firms to the UK, policymakers have understood that it is critical to get the UK's wider conditions for innovation right. Yet understanding what the optimum conditions for innovation are, and how to influence them, remains a challenge.

This report brings together a variety of indicators of how favourable the UK is as a place for firms to innovate, and compares them to a number of other innovative countries.