UK science good but costly, say businesses

Representatives from 70 UK universities and research institutes gathered in Stevenage last week to hear what industry wants from academia.

At the conference, held at GlaxoSmithKline on 7 and 8 May, a repeated message was that industry holds UK science in high esteem. However, businesses warned that collaborating in the UK is more costly than in other nations.

“I think that the main thing that came over was that the UK science base is strong,” Malcolm Skingle, director of academic liaison at GSK and co-organiser of the event, told Research Fortnight.