Summary of the impact

Prior to the 2010 Spending Review, UK universities (and others) feared the Government might renege on its promise to protect the Science Budget from austerity.

Research led by Professor Haskel established that investment in intangible knowledge has greater productivity-enhancing effects than previously thought, and that the largest benefits to general R&D and economic growth arise from research sponsored by Research Councils.

Aware of this research - explicitly cited as evidence during Spending Round negotiations [A] - Minister David Willetts averted a cut in the Science budget. Beneficiaries were not merely the academic community and science-oriented firms, but UK households who benefit from additional growth (relative to the counterfactual).

More generally, this research was used by the UK Office for National Statistics to include knowledge capital into the major revision to UK GDP data (first release in 2014) [B]. More accurate measures of productivity growth will inform business decisions and public policy.

Summary of the impact

In the early 2000s the increasing Chinese, Brazilian, Indian and South African multinational enterprise investments into advanced economies were greeted with genuine concern by policy makers in these emerging economies, where the fear was that this was a prelude to disinvestment and relocation to advanced economies. Many of these policy makers and their advisors went to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for guidance, which in turn harnessed the specialist expertise of University of Reading professors John H Dunning (joined Reading in 1964, now deceased) and Rajneesh Narula (at Reading since 2004).

Narula and Dunning wrote a key report, which transformed UNCTAD's technical assistance programme and reassured emerging market policy makers that this pattern of MNE investment was entirely predictable and not a prelude to disinvestment. The policy response in these countries was duly moderated.

Summary of the impact

Aston's research on inward investment has had considerable reach and significance, improving economic policy analysis on the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI). The research has:

• Influenced the development of economic policy for the Manchester and Birmingham City Regions.
• Changed awareness and understanding within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and UK Trade and Investment of the effects of inward investment, allowing them to judge ex ante whether certain types of inward investment are likely to benefit the UK economy.
• Changed the strategic thinking underlying the European Union's framework for evaluating the impact of outward FDI on EU countries.

Summary of the impact

The lack of understanding about what patents do in the UK has the potential to inhibit technology knowledge circulation and technology markets. BBS research on the role of intellectual property (IP) policies has addressed this issue, demonstrating the economic benefits to innovating firms which patent their R&D output and providing economic estimates of increased technology licensing. This has had practitioner and policy impact at both national and international levels.

Specific UK Impact

• The research represents first data gathered by Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on linked corporate licensing and patenting activity and has generated the first estimates of the market for technology in the UK and of the patent propensity
• The IPO and ONS (Office for National Statistics) together with Brunel University developed a proposal for a UK-wide estimation of the role of patenting in innovation. The IPO is making this a regular survey to run concurrently with the Community Innovation Survey.

Specific International Impact

• Informed by this research, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) has recognised the increased prevalence of distributed innovation strategies by firms and placed this at the forefront of innovation policy.
• WIPO message on distributed innovation as an advantage for developed and developing countries rests on data generated by Brunel.

Brunel research has provided a benchmark with patenting and licensing activity in the US, Japan, Australia, France and Germany.