Abaster

In December, NESTA, the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, released an important document entitled "Attacking the Recession" in which it proposed that the UK needs

a strategy to attack the recession, not just to respond to it. Innovation – in business, communities and public services – needs to be at the heart of that attack. The UK should aim to emerge as a more innovative, greener, more sustainable and diversified economy.

This document puts innovation squarely back in center court and helps dismiss the mutterings of the "innovation is dead" crowd. And it goes further, suggesting that innovation in other areas is equally important:

The biggest gains for society will be found in those sectors that both offer the most immediate growth potential, drawing on the UK’s existing strengths, and help meet long-term challenges: green energy, environmental services, biotechnology, and services for an ageing society.

As has been mentioned in earlier posts, rethinking and redesigning services and systems, from infrastructure to public services, is key not only to national economic recovery, but also to longer term economic advantage. Investment and innovation are building blocks of growth and competitiveness and are all the more critical in hard times.