London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025

Britain is running out of new ideas and it's killing productivity

Britain is running out of new ideas and it's killing productivity

It is no secret that Britain is in a productivity slump. The statistics should be familiar. In the decade before the pandemic, productivity grew at just 0.3 per cent per year. Before the financial crisis, it grew at 2 per cent. That might sound like an abstract or wonkish concern, but it is the difference between wages doubling every 35 years and wages doubling every 231 years.
In the short run, there are clear ways to lift our productivity levels closer to American or German levels. To their credit, the Government is implementing many of them. Reforming the planning system, a super-deduction for investment in productivity-boosting machinery, and a Help to Grow scheme to improve management skills will all help.

The above policies will bring us closer to the frontier, but pushing the frontier forward consistently is what really matters. In a way, the solution is simple: have more ideas. But it’s easier said than done.

When economists from Stanford and the LSE investigated whether ideas are getting harder to find, the answer was a clear “yes”. We now need eighteen times as many researchers to achieve a doubling of computer chip density, the famous Moore’s law, than we did in the 70s. Economists Ben Southwood and Tyler Cowen find similarly concerning trends across a range of scientific fields. We are getting fewer transformative discoveries even though the number of PhD researchers has surged over the past few decades.

If we can’t figure out how to reverse these worrying trends, then we will remain stuck. Our ability to solve our greatest problems from climate change to pandemics will be limited.

The Nobel Prize-Winning economist Robert Lucas once said of economic growth: “The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.”

In a foreword to a new essay collection, Patrick Collison, the co-founder of Stripe, observed that “many of the most important considerations that will determine the long-run rate of economic growth are not the foremost policy issues of our day.” How long do journalists spend reporting on the way we fund research? Even Dominic Cummings struggled to get it on the agenda.

It’s a concern shared by former Prime Minister Tony Blair. On technology he writes in the preface that “too often policymakers either ignore its importance or focus on questions like those to do with privacy which are important but limited; when the real debate should be around how we use technology to usher in a new advance for humankind.”

There may be a silver lining to the neglect: there is no culture war or partisan fight to worry about. In many cases, the low-hanging fruit has not been picked.

Take the way we fund scientific research for an example. A few recent studies suggest that radically different funding mechanisms could deliver substantial gains and liberate researchers from bureaucratic grant applications. Yet, the topic is under-studied. We ironically don’t apply the scientific method to science funding itself.

Or look at our approach to high-skilled immigration. We take a “build it and they will come” approach. At a stretch, we might create specialist visas. But we are in competition for global talent. Why not take a leaf out of the Premier League’s book? They invest serious money into scouting the next Neymar, Messi, and Salah. We could take a similar approach to scientific talent. The Government could fund scholarships at top universities for high-achievers at the International Math Olympiad.

These are just two ideas. We also need to make government procurement more open to new ideas, digitise the state to eliminate unnecessary frictions in civic life, and promote innovation to the next generation – through a 21st Century Great Exhibition.

In some fields, we have seen dramatic technological progress in the past year. CRISPR gene-editing is curing fatal genetic disorders, mRNA vaccines are bringing an end to the pandemic, and falling sequencing costs are enabling us to track new variants. Each technology is in its infancy, but has the potential to transform our lives. Imagine a world where every genetic disorder was easily treatable, where routine blood tests allow us to stop cancers at an extremely early-stage, and where infectious diseases are stamped out altogether.

It’s a future that is within reach. But we should be more impatient, more urgent. Boris Johnson wants to make the UK a science superpower. It’s the right rhetoric, but now is the time for action.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×