Lost Youth

Last Sunday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ruled out plans to negotiate a Youth Mobility Scheme with the European Union. Let’s hope others in the Government convince her otherwise.

It won’t come as a surprise to regular readers that we support youth mobility. As we argued in Job Creators: 2024, since leaving the EU, we’ve made it unnecessarily hard for a relatively well-educated and skilled population with a broadly common set of values, culture and interests to contribute to our economy and forge ties with the UK.

Britain already has Youth Mobility Schemes – which allow those aged between 18-30 years old (or 18-35, depending on the country) to easily come and work in the UK – with many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, San Marino, Monaco, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Uruguay and Taiwan.

When weighing up the economics, it’s something of a no-brainer. Youth Mobility Schemes help address labour shortages, ease inflationary pressures and support economic growth. They drive innovation, internationalisation and exporting for firms that employing these young people. By the Home Office’s own calculations, the average contribution of Youth Mobility visa holders to the exchequer in direct and indirect taxes annually is £10,000 today (adjusted for inflation).

Beyond economic benefits, the scheme promotes cultural exchange, strengthens international ties, enhances the UK’s soft power and fosters long-term collaboration that can lead to more economic benefits through future foreign direct investment.

But what about the politics of all this?

Well, nearly seven in ten Brits – including 55% of Leave voters – would support a scheme that would allow 200,000 18- to 40-year-olds from the UK and EU to travel, study and work freely in each other’s countries for up to four years.

And while the Conservatives – with Reform on their backs – will be unlikely to endorse the move, former Chancellor George Osborne makes the point on Political Currency that in negotiating a business-friendly arrangement with the EU, the Labour Party would set a trap for his Party. After all, the changes will be cemented in by the election, meaning Conservative opposition to them would put the Party at odds with Britain’s powerful business lobby.

Of course, the net migration figures terrify the Government. However, just 23,000 people came to the UK on Youth Mobility Visas in 2023, with as many young Brits going the other way (particularly to Australia). Also, most of these schemes are capped – Uruguay at 500 people, Canada at 8,000, and Australia at 45,000. We could negotiate for a capped EU Youth Mobility Visa scheme to offset the political risk associated with unexpectedly large numbers.

Nuclear Options
Keir Starmer has vowed to “rip up the rulebook” to accelerate new nuclear power, including small modular reactors (SMRs), which promise faster and cheaper deployment than traditional gigawatt-scale plants.

Reforms include increasing the number of sites on which power stations can be located, widely seen as one of the most important things for the industry, setting up a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce (see here for more on this), and better aligning the UK with international partners so reactor designs approved abroad could be green-lit more quickly.

This was music to our ears, and surely to those of Britain’s energy-intensive businesses too. In Small Wonders, our Research Director Eamonn Ives’ number one recommendation was around increasing the number of sites, and he also recommended international mutual recognition.

Far be it for us to look a gift policy in the mouth, but we would add that this should just be the start. We also proposed allowing local authorities which approve the construction of new nuclear power stations to capture more of the business rates they pay, and increasing the resourcing of the nuclear regulators to deal with more applications.

Regardless, a nuclear renaissance in Britain has never looked so likely.

Getting to Know You
If you scroll down you’ll see we’ve got lots of events in the pipeline. Some of these are close to full already, so if you want earlier invites, you’ll need to spend a couple of minutes telling us a bit about you and the sorts of events you want to be invited to.

As part of our growing activities, we’re also looking for new places around the country to host us. If you or your company would like to partner with us, drop us an email.

Breaking Barriers
The Disability Policy Centre are conducting a new project around disabled CEOs and business leaders, for which they’re interviewing entrepreneurs across a range of businesses.

Do you know someone who has a great story to tell about the barriers they faced in getting to the top and how they’re working to remove them? If so, feel free to drop Chloe and Louie a line.

Three Big Ideas #19

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Eamonn Ives takes stock of President Trump’s latest barrage of tariffs, Anastasia Bektimirova discusses bridging the science-policy gap, and Jessie May Green examines what DeepSeek’s ultra-efficient AI model could mean for future energy demand.

Arc of History

As Our World in Data informs us, extreme poverty around the world is plummeting. There are more than a billion fewer people living below the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day today than in 1990. On average, the number declined by 47 million every year, or 130,000 people each day.

This isn’t to excuse the poverty that still blights our world – exactly the opposite. It’s proof that progress is possible, and a motivation to work all the harder to help the remaining 650 million people – roughly one in twelve – who still live under that line.

So how does this happen? To radically simplify, the world gets richer through productivity increases – in other words, doing more with less, with entrepreneurs the driving force behind this. This doesn’t just happen in isolation – an entrepreneurial society is a social phenomenon. As Alfred Marshall set out in 1890 in Principles of Economics, agglomeration economies benefit from being close to one another due to knowledge spillovers, shared suppliers, and a concentrated labour market.

In other words, an entrepreneurial society thrives when businesses, talent, and infrastructure reinforce one another. This is why the Oxford-Cambridge Arc has long been seen as a potential growth engine – and why we’ve been long-standing supporters of it. As some readers may remember, the original plan under Boris Johnson was to build a new ​​rail link, new homes and a new expressway – but bit by bit, the project fell apart.

In a turn towards growth, Rachel Reeves has revived the Arc. And it’s worth quoting her at length – both for the all-too-rare pleasure of reading political statements that we can wholeheartedly endorse, but also to set it down as a marker to judge words against action.

The Chancellor said: “To grow, these world-class companies need world-class talent who should be able to get to work quickly and find somewhere to live in the local area. But to get from Oxford to Cambridge by train takes two and a half hours.”... “There is no way to commute directly from places like Bedford and Milton Keynes to Cambridge by rail. And there is a lack of affordable housing across the region.”... “Oxford and Cambridge are two of the least affordable cities in the UK. In other words, the demand is there but there are far too many supply side constraints on economic growth in the region.”

As Stian Westlake, Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and one of our Advisers, said back in 2022: “If you’ve got lots of smart people doing great research, if you make it easy to build housing and offices near those people, the magic of the free market will do its thing. People will set up businesses and economic growth will happen.”

“The tragedy in the UK,” he goes on to say, “is that we channel lots and lots of public money into two very beautiful towns – Oxford and Cambridge – where it is almost impossible to build anything. The arc is an attempt to solve this by allowing people to build things in between – Milton Keynes, Bedford – link it up with roads and rail, so it gets easier for entrepreneurs to set up the things they want to.”

As we wrote in Building Blocks: “Too few people subscribe to an agglomeration-led approach to growth. The political focus of late has shifted away from championing dynamic hotspots like the Golden Triangle, most obviously, but also even regions like Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Bristol.”

I’ll end with the words of Reeves: “It has the potential to be Europe’s Silicon Valley. The home of British innovation.” (Though in the long run, actions speak louder than words.)

The Codemakers
Hot off the press, we’ve just released an interview with Herbie Bradley, AI governance and policy expert and former member of the technical staff at the AI Safety Institute (AISI).

The interview with Anastasia Bektimirova, our Head of Science and Technology, covers a lot of ground, which defies summarising. Instead, I will point to one lesson Bradley says he learned from his experience at AISI that could be applied to getting other existing and future projects off the ground and scaling them effectively within DSIT, or government more broadly (excuse the long quote, but I think the insight deserves it):

“When you’re trying to build state capacity or launch a new initiative that needs to be impactful and move fast, you basically need to start a new team. If it’s an existing team, it’s probably too enmeshed in bureaucracy.

Secondly, you need significant political backing. In our case, we were fortunate to have great support from Henry de Zoete, who was then the Prime Minister’s Adviser on AI, and others in No. 10 and DSIT, particularly the minister at the time, Michelle Donelan. This means you can get around normal bureaucracy when needed, like hiring someone in a way that hasn’t been done before within the department.

You also need an incentive to perform well. This could be internal motivation from team members believing in the ideal or mission, a tight deadline like a Summit organised on very short notice, or competitive pressure from overlapping mandates with existing teams.

And finally, try to hire from outside government – people who are used to moving fast from industry and the startup world. That’s also effective.

There is an inevitable effect where a new, fast-moving, high-entropy team gradually gets pressed down by bureaucratic systems like HR, contracting, and finance. The general systemic incentive is to reduce fast-moving teams to a low-entropy state and make them more similar to the rest of government.

To counteract this, you need political backing and might need to start a new team or initiative if the first one becomes too slow. This explains why politicians often like to start new teams. There is an analogy here to the fractal startup model in industry. OpenAI scaled their ChatGPT team by creating conditions mimicking a pre-seed stage startup – totally new Google Drive, getting the new product team together in person five days a week, creating a separate office space – and that works surprisingly well.”

I strongly recommend reading the interview in full.

The Codemakers

In our latest interview, Anastasia Bektimirova spoke to Herbie Bradley, AI governance and policy expert and former member of the technical staff at the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute. Among other things, they discussed building Britain’s AI advantage and what the AI Safety Institute can teach us about state capacity.

Three Big Ideas #18

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Eamonn Ives looks at the results of a new paper on the benefits of the sharing economy, Anastasia Bektimirova gives her take on the new Science and Technology Venture Capital Fellowship, and Philip Salter argues that fully unleashing academics’ innovative potential will take more than just building.

Constructive Comments

Britain needs to build. Actually, it’s been ‘time to build’ for a while now, which is why we’re encouraged by recent Government announcements and news reports suggesting those in power are taking it seriously. Better late than never.

First, plans were set out to reform the process developers have to go through to address any environmental impacts projects might cause. Under current rules, these have to be done in advance in order to receive planning permission. Under the proposed changes, developers will be able to pay into a Nature Restoration Fund, pooling contributions and putting them towards larger, more effective environmental projects.

Second, no-hope legal challenges that cost the taxpayer a fortune and delay critical infrastructure projects could be consigned to history. As Labour MP Dan Tomlinson writes on X: “The independent National Infrastructure Commission finds that an astonishing 58% of projects are being JR’ed [judicially reviewed] up from 10%.”

The Government is streamlining the planning process for major infrastructure projects – such as nuclear plants, wind farms, and transport networks – by limiting speculative legal challenges to one stage instead of three. This reform aims to cut delays, lower costs, and drive economic growth by removing unnecessary obstacles that hinder progress.

Third, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce the approval of a new runway at Heathrow next week, while the Treasury is also considering whether to back a second runway at Gatwick and increased capacity at Luton Airport. Our friends at UK Day One have a timely paper out on why Heathrow is the most capacity-constrained transport hub in the world. In Britain’s Runway to Growth, they argue that expanding it could boost nationwide economic growth while still meeting the commitments on climate, air pollution, noise, and regional growth.

As with the AI Opportunities Action Plan, however, the Government must move at pace. They can and must go further too. In Small Wonders, for example, our Research Director Eamonn Ives explained how small modular reactors could provide cheaper, more reliable energy, while helping us cut carbon emissions too.

Our paper contains numerous policy recommendations that should be implemented to get the industry off the ground. These include allowing local authorities which approve the construction of new nuclear power stations to be entitled to capture more of the business rates they pay – creating a powerful incentive for them to green light development. It also suggests we should be able to mutually recognise the decisions of nuclear regulators in other allied countries when it comes to approving new nuclear designs, as already happens in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, aerospace, financial services and many other critical areas. Importantly, this would free up our own regulators to concentrate on issues that apply specifically to Britain, rather than simply duplicating work that has already been done elsewhere.

Labour’s Choice
If those growth policies aren’t enough, this week our Advisers Sam Bowman and Sam Dumitriu set out 11 more for Labour to choose from. The final recommendation is based on a paper by our Head of Innovation Research, Anton Howes. It deals with the thorny (but critical) issue of using copyright for AI development. Bowman as Dumitriu write:

“The best short-term solution to this is the one proposed in Matt Clifford’s AI Opportunities Action Plan: allow training without a license unless the rightsholder explicitly requires one. This is the EU’s approach, and while we think we should aspire to be better than the EU on tech regulation, it’s a lot better than the status quo. Instead of announcing yet another consultation, as the government has done, it should adopt Clifford’s proposals immediately and, in the medium-term, aim to set up an API standard for contract terms that reduces transaction costs between AI companies and rightsholders, so dealings between them can be fast and inexpensive.”

Paper Over
As I wrote in my latest Big Idea over on our Substack, according to the Government’s State of Digital Government Review, the public sector spends £26 billion annually on digital technology, yet nearly half of central government and NHS services still rely on paper forms and manual processes.

It doesn’t need to be like this. The report mentions Estonia in passing, which offers an online option for 99% of its services. As I wrote alongside Kirsty Innes, now of Labour Together, in our essay on building a digital state for our Way of the Future collection, the future of government services shouldn’t be only about moving forms online; we need to copy the likes of Estonia and Singapore which automatically provide services to citizens instead of requiring them to apply.

Read more and subscribe to our Substack here.

Need-to-know Basis
Our Adviser Harriet Green has just launched Basis, which is kicking off with private investment in early-stage companies that are building where the state is failing. If you are working in this space and the Basis thesis resonates with you, Harriet and team would love to hear from you. Message her here.

Three Big Ideas #17

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Philip Salter urges the public sector to think big on embracing digital technology, Anastasia Bektimirova wonders about how we label innovators, and Eamonn Ives puts forward ideas for spurring agglomeration in London.

Does Compute

Matt Clifford’s long-awaited report finally landed this week. The AI Opportunities Action Plan packs a punch, delivering 50 recommendations to the Government.

For a deep dive, our Head of Science and Technology Anastasia Bektimirova offers a thorough analysis of the Plan on our Substack. As she said to Sifted (paywall): “The plan has a lot of very constructive recommendations... but this is something that was supposed to arrive much sooner, and at the moment it feels like we’re playing catch-up.”

The proof of any plan is in the execution. But as Anastasia said for another Sifted article (paywall): “It’s a very good sign that Matt Clifford will be overseeing the delivery of this plan.” It’s clear that the necessary infrastructure development, sustained funding commitments, talent attraction, and changes to procurement will all require tough political decisions to be made. As she writes in our Substack analysis, “the responsibility is also on the AI sector itself to demonstrate how it can deliver on the Government’s aims. The success of the Action Plan depends on sustained political support. Ministers want something to feel positive about and to champion, so articulating the opportunity is important – and this will be our task.”

As our Adviser Richard Mabey, founder of the AI-powered contract automation platform Juro, responds: “The key now is not the recommendations in the report, it’s in the delivery. To stand a chance of getting ahead, the Government must implement the recommendations at breakneck speed. Can Government move at the pace of AI? Let’s see.”

Janan Ganesh isn’t convinced we can. Ever the provocateur, he writes in the Financial Times (paywall) that Britain should stop pretending it wants more economic growth: “Tories want growth, but not if it means building things, aligning with Europe, or much exposure to China. Labour wants growth, but not if it incommodes the unions, or ‘leaves people behind’ or some such NGO press release inanity. What growth policy is left over, then?”

I’m more optimistic (and I suspect Ganesh might be too). Just this week, politicians across the political spectrum endorsed a National Priority Infrastructure Bill from the Looking For Growth group. These included Chris Curtis, co-chair of the Labour Growth Group, which has around 100 Labour MPs as members. Looking For Growth is run by friend of the Network Dr Lawrence Newport (and author of an essay for us on Inspiring Innovation) – it’s a social movement dedicated to making Britain grow. He is one of many people working on policy to increase the size and dynamism of our economy.

A decade ago, being unashamedly pro-growth and pro-progress could be a lonely place to be. This is no longer the case. Time to get involved.

Join us for an evening of networking with like-minded, pro-growth entrepreneurs in Soho this Wednesday. Spaces are limited, so sign up now.

On Your Mind
We want to hear from founders! What barriers are holding your startups back? Here’s a message from Eamonn Ives, our Research Director setting out what he’s looking for:

“At The Entrepreneurs Network, we’re here to solve problems. But in order to do that, we first need to know what those problems are. And there’s nobody better placed to tell us than the founders who have to deal with them each and every day. Our pipeline of research for the year ahead is taking shape but we’re still eager to know what issues you think we should be focusing on to ensure Britain’s startups have the best shot at success. Maybe it’s a regulation that stymies your sector, or something that cuts across the breadth of the economy – whatever it is, drop me an email and let’s chat further.”

Three Big Ideas #16

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Eamonn Ives asks whether Elon Musk is a genius, Philip Salter writes about the disruption AI could spell for the labour force, and Anastasia Bektimirova discusses the myth of objectives.

Calling It

Peter Drucker once said that the only thing we know about the future is that it will be different. Far be it from me to correct the founder of modern management theory, but at least in the short term, we aren’t entirely clueless.

Although precise predictions are impossible, our experience can guide us toward likely outcomes, something that both entrepreneurs and policymakers need. While we don’t know what a second-term President Trump will look like, we have more knowledge than we did when he was elected for his first term. We know, for example, to take his words seriously despite claims back in 2016 that we should take them symbolically. That’s not to say he will – or can – do everything he wants. And we also know that he’s quick to change his mind. This underscores how uncertain the global policy landscape will be under Trump’s leadership – and why entrepreneurs and policymakers alike must stay agile.

As our Research Director Eamonn Ives argued last year following the election, the lesson for many European countries, including the UK, is that we’ve grown too accustomed to relying on external actors. Whether that’s the US for technological innovation and security, or Russia and China for cheap energy and goods – without adequately considering the vulnerabilities this creates. Rather than retreating into economic insularity, Eamonn makes the case for smarter policies that prioritise resilience and recognise the true foundations of growth. Whether that’s in policy areas where we can work more closely with our allies, or in areas where we need to build our own capabilities – like producing our own cheap, clean energy.

On this side of the pond, we now know a lot more about our new Labour Government. It’s fair to say that not everything has gone the way that Britain’s entrepreneurs would have wanted, but we – and Labour – should remember that there’s still four and a half years left before the next election needs to be held, which is ample time to turn things around.

That won’t happen on its own, however, and as the warning lights of the economy flash a darker shade of red, Starmer should be minded to look back to the record of the last man to break the Tories’ stranglehold on power. In his first term alone, Tony Blair managed to enact a host of reforms that materially changed the political fabric of Britain. Many of these he gripped early on in his premiership, meaning that the benefits had time to accrue by the time voters next went to the polls. Short-term news cycles have certainly changed how politics works, but they haven’t rendered long-term governance a thing of the past just yet – Labour can’t forget that they have the power to act. On this, Anastasia Bektimirova shares Blair’s insights on X, taken from his recent book On Leadership.

So what else should entrepreneurs be thinking about this year?

The elephant (not playing chess) in the room is artificial intelligence. The only challenge is predicting the timeline. However, this isn’t entirely a black box; there are people with proven insights. Rodney Brooks, for example, has been making predictions since 2018. While he hasn’t always been spot on forecasting the timeline for AI, robotics, self-driving cars and human space travel, his deep knowledge combined with his self-awareness makes his 2025 update a must-read.

He’s not the only one worth reading to get a better understanding of how AI will evolve in 2025. Read Herbie Bradley to understand what Trump could mean for AI. Read Simon Willison for a comprehensive update on LLMs and AI, with a few hints at likely directions for the future. And read Austin Vernon for a view on how AI agents may be integrated into companies (this one is a short, essential read for all entrepreneurs).

There’s room for disagreement. That is why AI sceptic Gary Marcus has made a bet with Miles Brundage, formerly of OpenAI, on whether AI will be able to pass ten tests – including writing Pulitzer-caliber books, coming up with Nobel-caliber scientific discoveries, writing cogent, persuasive legal briefs – by 2027.

In reality, the truth likely lies somewhere between these extremes. The Pulitzer test may miss a more immediate shift. AI is already reshaping how influential thinkers approach their work. Economist Tyler Cowen says he is now writing primarily for AI as a target audience. So is researcher Gwern Branwen. (For my part, I’m still writing for humans.) What we can be sure of is that reality will be transformational for everyone reading this.

It’s time
If you’re one of the thousands of people reading this, wondering how you can get more involved in 2025, here are three ways.

First, if you haven’t already, join us as a Supporter, Adviser, Patron or Corporate Partner. We wouldn’t be able to do all the work we do without this. You can join online in a couple of minutes. Along with the warm glow of supporting us, you’ll also receive invitations to many more events.

Second, we’re collecting testimonials and case studies from our supporters and collaborators. If you’d like to contribute, please drop me an email. Your input will help us showcase our impact to new audiences.

Third, we have a survey that helps us tailor opportunities to your interests. It only takes a few minutes to complete and really helps us focus our efforts.

We’re looking forward to seeing you in 2025!

Three Big Ideas #15

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Eamonn Ives highlights an innovation arms race going on in the food industry, Anastasia Bektimirova discusses revolving doors in the world of AI, and Philip Salter espouses the potential of pilots.

Summary Time

In 2024, The Entrepreneurs Network turned ten. Given that only around a third of businesses survive beyond a decade, perhaps we’re doing something right. Ultimately though, there is only one metric that matters: are we making the UK a better place than it would otherwise be for entrepreneurs? I’ll leave it to others to make that ultimate judgement, but as you’ll see below it’s not lack of effort – and our plans for the next year are even more ambitious. We hope you’ll remain part of our journey.

Unless something extraordinary happens in the next few days, the UK’s biggest political event of the year was July’s General Election. While we don’t take sides on politics – we do take a keen interest in policy. And there has been plenty of policy to get stuck into.

Most vocally, we got over 1,250 entrepreneurs to sign a letter against the negative impact that rumoured changes to Capital Gains Tax and Business Asset Disposal Relief would have. The Chancellor took note, but there is more work to do. As Richard Tyler wrote in The Times: Gordon Brown’s tax break for entrepreneurs survives — but for how long?

Back to Basics
Every year we release at least one wide-ranging report that aims to influence – or at least capture – the zeitgeist. In March, we released Building Blocks, which argued that the fundamentals of what makes for a competitive economy have been neglected for too long. We focused on four areas to fix: our chronic under-agglomeration, looming fiscal headaches, obstacles to innovation and a failure to fully harness domestic and international talent. There is still much to do on all four fronts, but the narrative that we and others have called for – fixing the foundations – has cut through.

Another wide-ranging report was June’s Backing Breakthrough Businesses, which was driven by our new Patron Steve Rigby through his leadership of the Private Business Commission. We launched it in Parliament with Jonathan Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and it picked up coverage in The Times and elsewhere, with many of the policy recommendations in train.

In September, our Research Director Eamonn Ives got to the core of small nuclear reactors in Small Wonders. As the report argues, abundant energy is crucial for economic growth, particularly with the rise of energy-intensive technologies like AI, and achieving climate goals requires significantly expanding clean generation.

Big Society
While entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, we should aspire to live in a country where nobody faces social impediments when starting and growing a business.

We want to take everyone on this journey with us. Whether that’s the neurodivergent in March’s Neurodiverse Founders, the next generation in June’s Empowering the Future, the regions in September’s United Growth, or anyone no matter where they’re born in February’s Entrepreneurs Unwrapped.

As many of you will have seen, this week we launched Gaining Altitude in the House of Lords – the latest report from our Female Founders Forum. For this one we partnered with the Invest in Women Taskforce to better understand Britain’s female angel investor community around the UK. Yesterday, Hannah Bernard OBE set out in City A.M. what needs to be done.

Global Britain
We’ve long argued that if we are to remain competitive we must remain open to talent. In August’s Job Creators 2024, we reveal the proportion of founders behind Britain’s fastest-growing companies that were born overseas: 39%.

British companies also need to expand internationally. In December’s Towards A More Special Relationship we examined what challenges exist for British founders looking to do that in the US, and set out a clear raft of policy recommendations for the Government to address them.

Science Superpower
I’m delighted to announce that Anastasia Bektimirova has been promoted to become our Head of Science and Technology to build out our work portfolio in this area. Her main interests include AI policy, strategy and delivery of the National Data Library, research commercialisation, alongside broader topics related to the health of the UK’s R&D ecosystem. She is also thinking about how institutions can improve their delivery of national science and technology objectives. If you share these interests, reach out.

As such, we will be engaging with the Government as it is consulting on copyright and AI. We believe in a policy environment which enables responsible access to high-quality input needed to develop AI models in the UK, and have already set out some potential options in January’s Can the UK Become Competitive on Text-and-Data Mining for AI? We are keen to hear your thoughts on how the Government can strike the right balance. Feel free to drop Anastasia a line.

White Heat of Technology
This year we joined Substack. Check out our interviews with: Station F Director, Roxanne Varza; former DSIT Policy Adviser Ben Johnson; and ARC Accelerator Co-Founder Chris Fellingham. We also revived our Three Big Ideas series – where we and experts in our community pitch our weekly hot takes on things that have piqued our curiosity – and written up more digestible analysis about the research we publish.

Ten More Years
Last but certainly not least, I want to thank our Patrons, Advisers, Supporters, Corporate Partners, and event hosts. This includes everyone here, as well as American Express, Arbuthnot Latham, Barclays, Barclays Eagle Labs, Beauhurst, Blick Rothenberg, Bradshaw Advisory, Britain Remade, Enterprise Nation, Evelyn Partners, FieldHouse, Fora, Fragomen, Gatsby, Growth Hub Global, Jobbatical, Kingsley Napley, LSE IDEAS, MDRx, Milltown Partners, OakNorth, Octopus, Rathbones, Rigby Group, Sumer, UCL, University of Bristol, YBI, and almost certainly one or two I’m forgetting.

We can only do what we do with support from our partners. If you would like to help us deliver on our mission, support us here or book a time to chat over Zoom. We look forward to working with you.

Three Big Ideas #14

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Philip Salter reflects on mirrored life, Anastasia Bektimirova discusses launching startups inside of government, and Eamonn Ives argues the case for paying CEOs like footballers.

Growing Concerns

For a government that came into office with the laudable if stretching ambition of making Britain the fastest growing economy in the G7, today’s growth figures do not make for pretty reading. I say growth figures, but they’d perhaps more accurately be described as contraction figures – with the economy as a whole shrinking by 0.1% in the month of October, mirroring September’s languid performance.

Of course, far from all of the blame lies with the new Government. They inherited a sluggish economy plagued by decades of cumulative underinvestment in the fundamental building blocks of prosperity. Turning the ship around will take time, and credit should be given to the commitment to shake up areas like planning policy, which we know have an outsized influence on growth.

But nor are the occupants of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street entirely without fault. Just this week, a number of stories splashed the concerns bosses continue to have following the most recent Budget. OakNorth founder Rishi Khosla warned that tax changes are already causing wealth creators to leave the country, while at a roundtable between the Chancellor and senior business leaders, reports say almost all were pessimistic about the year to come. If Labour are to hit their growth goal, something needs to give.

Never ones to sit on the sidelines in this debate, on Monday we launched our latest report. In Towards A More Special Relationship, supported by our Patron Steve Rigby, we examine how to strengthen the entrepreneurial ties between Britain and its old ally America (the economy of which, if you needed reminding, is up a healthy 2.8% on the year prior). The report saw us talk directly to entrepreneurs who’ve made the hop across the Atlantic, investors who’ve ploughed money into startups stateside, and other key players involved in the growth journeys of similar companies. As well as mapping out the benefits the US market presents, we were also interested in understanding the barriers that prevent those benefits from being seized – and how to subsequently dismantle them.

One of the common themes we heard from those we interviewed was that for all the preconceptions of America being the land of the free, finding a foothold in the US market can be a bureaucratic nightmare. Whether it’s getting insurance or navigating immigration frameworks, founders told us that the administrative aspect of expansion can be a more costly experience than you might imagine – both financially and time-wise. Efforts to simplify this could prove especially helpful for the growth of companies who spot an opportunity.

In terms of our recommendations to foster greater Anglo-American economic integration, we set our sights high. At the top of our list is an appeal for the Government to prioritise a free trade agreement (FTA) with the new US administration once President-elect Trump is sworn in next January. Though certainly ambitious, it would not be unthinkable – when he was last in the White House, Trump appeared keen to strike a deal, and five rounds of negotiations were undertaken in his final year in office. Rachel Reeves, meanwhile, has made a number of positive noises about one in recent weeks and months.

Rarely does a lever for growth quite like an FTA with the world’s biggest economy present itself, but if the Government can yank it, their objectives will be made all the easier. Here’s to hoping they manage to.

Action Stations
On Tuesday, my colleague Anastasia published her fascinating interview with Station F director Roxanne Varza. Among other things, the two discuss how Station F has become a focal point for the French startup scene, what trends European artificial intelligence legislation is setting in motion, and whether there are any policy lessons Britain can learn from across the Channel to boost its own entrepreneurial ecosystem. Highly recommended – all this and more can be found on our Substack.  

Three Big Ideas #13

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Philip Salter explores the gruesome if useful history of medical self-experimentation, Anastasia Bektimirova argues the case for enabling widespread adoption of AI, and Eamonn Ives discusses what lessons the cruise liner industry can teach us on dry land.

Three Big Ideas #12

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Eamonn Ives discusses likening poor scientific research to dangerous lab equipment, Philip Salter writes about when governments act swiftly, and in a guest post, Patrick King of Reform think tank explains how the Civil Service Fast Stream can up its game.

Britain Needs Talent

Yesterday, I went on Sky News to share my reaction to the headline news that net migration topped 906,000 last year.

I was asked, in part, because of the research we’ve undertaken on an important cohort of immigrants: the foreign-born founders of Britain’s fastest growing companies. This year we partnered with Fragomen to reveal that 39% of the fastest growing companies in the UK are started by an immigrant. This annual report serves as a reminder that immigrants are massively overrepresented when it comes to building Britain’s most impressive companies. We should celebrate this. Their openness to risk is Britain’s reward – evidenced by the jobs they create and the billions they pay in taxes.

But let’s step back from the apex. When it comes to broader business immigration, the Conservatives, after being relatively open post-Brexit, restricted immigration just before losing the election. This wasn’t just bad politics (at that point nobody cared and Labour now don’t need to do anything to see immigration decline), it will be bad for the economy. Oxford Migration Observatory estimates these changes will cost Britain £25 billion over ten years.

These restrictions are why immigration dropped by 20% in the 12 months to June, and why it now stands at 728,000. The last government also bumped up fees, with the health surcharge, for example, increasing from £624 to £1,035 per year in February. For a skilled worker to come to the UK for five years with their spouse and a dependent, the charges are now in the tens of thousands. Our fees are seven times those of Australia, twelve times Canada, and eighty-six times Germany. Yes, you read that right – eighty-six times!

Despite this, clearly public attitudes towards immigration have become more negative. However, if you dig a little deeper, the public is deeply conflicted. As Jonathan Thomas, Senior Fellow of the SMF, argues in a recent briefing paper: “A majority of the public may indicate a preference for lower numbers of immigrant workers into the UK overall, but often then struggle to name any particular sectors or roles where they would like to see this reduction happen in practice. In more recent times, despite increasing disquiet over overall immigration numbers in the UK, the sectors with by far the largest inflows and impact on those numbers – health and care – are exactly those where the public seem most relaxed and supportive of workers coming from overseas.”

Thomas recommends that the money raised through the Immigration Skills Charge is hypothecated to directly address skills gaps in the UK workforce, with billboards across the UK proclaiming the opportunities to access what would be a sizeable training pot. It sounds like the right approach to me.

I’m not here to make the case for every immigrant, but we all know businesses are crying out for talent. If we had the skills, mindset and work ethic in the domestic population Britain's businesses wouldn’t hesitate to snap them up. To be frank, the fact that the domestic workforce isn’t up to scratch is an ongoing government failure. After all, the government has a near-monopoly or is the main funder of the formal education most of us receive. While we have many ideas on how to address this, entrepreneurs growing businesses need talent immediately.

To be clear, I don’t doubt that there are parts of the system that could and should be tightened up. I back calls for more data on costs and benefits of the various routes. Nor do I doubt that there are complex challenges beyond the scope of business migration that need addressing. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that many of Britain’s best businesses are started by people born outside the UK; and all Britain’s most ambitious business owners – wherever they were born – need talent to compete internationally.

Task Masterminds

As many will already know, the Invest in Women Taskforce has exceeded its initial target of £250 million in capital raise for female founders. Barclays, M&G, the British Business Bank, Morgan Stanley, Visa Foundation, BGF and Aviva have committed capital to the ‘Invest in Women Taskforce’ investment pool.

A big congratulations to Hannah Bernard OBE, Head of Business Banking at Barclays and Serial entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow OBE for leading the charge. Now they’re looking for someone to manage the fund. So if you are a fund manager who can meet the objectives, visit the Taskforce’s website to find out more.

As a member of the Taskforce, I’m in awe of how quickly this has all happened – not least, given the political disruption of an election. If you scroll down you’ll see that we’re launching a report in the House of Lords with the Taskforce.

Butler’s Service

We have a new Adviser! Sarah-Jane Butler is an award-winning lawyer and serial entrepreneur. Along with fellow directors, she launched Farringford Legal in response to spotting a gap in the market for a new breed of law firm.

In her own words: “One of my personal ambitions is to make a meaningful impact on the entrepreneurial community by lending my voice and actions to campaigns that help SME businesses thrive in the UK.

“I admire how The Entrepreneurs Network has created an effective bridge between the business community and central Government. It ensures entrepreneurs have a platform to be heard and influence policy that fosters sustainable growth—a mission I strongly support.

“As a champion for female founders, I am particularly passionate about working with the Female Founders Forum. Their efforts to close the funding gap by encouraging investors to back female entrepreneurs align closely with my advocacy goals.”

Find out more about Sarah-Jane here, and learn more about becoming an Adviser here.

Waiting All Week

Small Business Saturday is back on 7 December. As I’m sure you know after years of amazing publicity, it’s an annual campaign to celebrate the nation’s fantastic 5.5 million small businesses.

The campaign is open to all small businesses across the UK, and it is completely free. Many team up to host events, offer promotions or simply use it as an opportunity to engage their customers.

A marketing pack is available from the Small Business Saturday website to help you get involved, and you can also register to be featured on the campaign’s Small Business Finder map.

Three Big Ideas #11

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Anastasia Bektimirova ponders the possibility of an AI-powered social science revolution, Philip Salter contemplates competition policy, and in a guest post, Jeremy Driver, of Britain Remade, explains why Britain needs to extend the lifespan of its nuclear power plants.

Striking the Rights Balance

All budgets have winners and losers. The most vocal on the wrong end of the latest one are those hit by the inheritance tax changes, and the CEOs of Britain’s biggest businesses who plan to cut jobs and investment due to hikes to National Insurance. For the latter, these National Insurance hikes add insult to injury – the injury being the Employment Rights Bill, which was introduced prior to the Budget.

The Bill isn’t set in stone – the Government is currently consulting on it – and given the huge blowback around the National Insurance rise, I expect those in power will be particularly alert to any critiques. After all, according to the Government’s own analysis, the planned reforms will cost businesses billions a year.

In our conversations with entrepreneurs, the biggest concern around the Bill seems to be the right to claim unfair dismissal against employers from day one. Currently, there is a two-year qualifying period. While there will be a less onerous process for earlier terminations due to capability, conduct, illegality or so forth, many business owners are worried.

As Daniel Pollard, employment partner at Charles Russell Speechlys, says: “The risk of hiring the wrong person may make employers more cautious which is not good for anybody. If the rules are too restrictive during the probationary period this will also act as a brake on recruitment and stop employers taking a punt on a candidate who might be an outlier.”

For entrepreneurs in the sharing economy, we’ve heard concerns about the restrictions around zero-hour contracts. While the Bill doesn’t ban them, it sets out complex rules requiring guaranteed hours. Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation says: “Far too much is made of zero-hour contracts as being imposed on workers when there is more than enough evidence that people want to work in different ways.” This reflects the findings of our report for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship on the Sharing Economy.

There’s much more besides – some of which is hard to get too worked up about, such as stopping ‘firing and rehiring’. But as it currently stands, there’s an awful lot in there that will render British businesses less agile. This article on 11 things you need to know about the Employment Rights Bill is a good place to start if you don’t know what might be coming down the line.

I write “might” because my sense is that the Government is open to striking a better balance. If you’re keen to have your say, but don’t want to or can’t respond directly, sign up here. We’ll be going out directly to our Members to feed into our submission.

Big Deal
This week was the tenth instalment of our Three Big Ideas series on our Substack. If you’ll forgive the self-promotion, I think it’s a cracker. We invited Jack Wiseman from Inference Magazine to make the case for Special Compute Zones that are rumoured to appear in Matt Clifford’s AI Opportunities Action Plan. I wrote about how the Annual Investment Allowance has distorted investment away from business spending on big data and AI. While our Research Director Eamonn Ives gives some sound advice to whoever becomes the Chair of the newly established Regulatory Innovation Office (applications close this Sunday).

Lilac Review
I’m on the board of the Lilac Review – an independent government-backed review dedicated to understanding the challenges and successes experienced by disabled entrepreneurs.

On a range of questions, we’re looking for the views of entrepreneurs with a disability. Your insights will contribute to a comprehensive report from the Lilac Review, set for release in May 2025. As a thank you, everyone who completes the survey will be entered into a draw to win one of two £250 prizes.

You can take the survey here. The Lilac Review is committed to making this survey accessible to all. If you’d prefer to complete the survey in a different format, please reach out at: hello@lilacreview.com.

The Lilac Review was spearheaded by Michelle Ovens CBE, whose tenacity on this topic is only beaten by her ambitions to move the agenda forward. If you want to support this policy area and don’t know Mich, drop me an email and I’ll make an introduction.

Founder Resilience
Building on last week’s newsletter, I wrote for Forbes about the importance of founder resilience. If this is something that matters to you, let me know and I’ll make an introduction to Christina Richardson, our Adviser and author of the report.

Three Big Ideas #10

Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.

In this week, Philip Salter writes about capital incentives slowing the diffusion of next-generation technologies, Eamonn Ives discusses ‘invisible graveyards’, and in a guest post, Jack Wiseman, of Inference Magazine, crunches the numbers on what Britain’s future electricity system should look like.