Matt Johnson: Feed our young brains with cash

Sep 19 2007 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

IT'S been said that a thin line forms the invisible partition between a brilliant mind and a mad one.

At a recent conference hosted at one of the UK's foremost universities (not in Liverpool!), a BBC commentator said he felt certain that the line had been clearly drawn where he was.

He and his fellow delegates, he told his listeners, were among some of the greatest minds in Britain.

The conference was about growing enterprise, and one of the points the commentator was making was that Britain is still home to some of the world's best scientists.

But when it comes to giving them the money to turn their ideas into world-beating business success stories, we are third rate.

It's a provocative view. It should however focus minds of all kinds.

In a city and region like Liverpool where research and development activity at our universities and colleges is important, it's just as important that everything possible is done to nurture and develop fledgling businesses "spun out" of the workshops, laboratories and libraries of our tertiary education establishments.

It's traditionally been in areas like the life sciences sector that this sort of business incubation has taken place, and it's no coincidence that the National Biomanufacturing Centre is based in Liverpool at Speke, itself a hot spot for pharmaceutical production.

But surely, using this sort of model of collaboration and joined up working, there is scope to convert more research findings into viable business enterprises.

There does not appear to be any shortage of entrepreneurial talent in this region. And I am certain there are a great many younger brains being expanded at our universities and colleges which will produce the ideas and inventions on which sound businesses can be built.

The trick, of course, lies in putting the two together. Or at least demonstrating that we have done all we can to explore the possibilities of getting good ideas from good R&D into good shape for the market.

Last year in the UK, venture capitalists invested more than £1bn in young businesses.

That's a lot. But, in increasingly competitive global arenas and in a country where some of the best ideas the world has ever seen have come from great minds, the question to ask is: Is that enough?

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group.