No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
FRANCIS BACON OBSERVED THAT IN THE DECLINING AGE OF A state, mechanical arts and merchandise flourish. Unfortunately, Britain's case is now almost the obverse of this. The underlying causes of Britain's present circumstances are evidently complex but a fruitful place at which to begin is with the country's technology policy and its associated research and development orientation.
It is especially alarming politically that the long run decline in manufacturing industry which Britain has experienced, and tolerated, throughout this century has recently accelerated. The country's share of world trade in manufactured goods fell precipitately in the 1960s (15 to 9 per cent), but worse still, there is evidence that imports have on balance become steadily more technologically advanced than exports. Inevitably, manufactures have contributed a falling proportion of overseas earnings (52 per cent 1971, 43 per cent 1981), leading to a historically unprecedented deficit on manufactured goods. Inevitably too, and worsened by the international recession, employment in manufacturing industry has fallen sharply (8.1 million 1971, 5.7 million 1982). The economic slide relative to other advanced industrial countries which has resulted has been disguised only by the strength of the service sector and the fortuitous arrival of North Sea oil. All this has naturally received an abundance of academic discussion.
1 For example: Pavitt, Keith (ed.), Technical Innovation and British Economic Performance, London, Macmillan, 1980 Google Scholar; Blackaby, Frank (ed.), Deindustrialisation, London, Heinemann, 1980 Google Scholar; Carter, Charles (ed.), Industrial Policy and Innovation, London, Heinemann, 1981 Google Scholar; Grant, Wyn, The Political Economy of Industrial Policy, London, Butterworths, 1982.Google Scholar
2 SirClarke, Richard, ‘Mintech in Retrospect’, OMEGA, Vol. No. 1, pp. 25–38, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 137–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Beesley, Michael and Mencher, Alan, ‘Managing Intervention: An Interpretation of the Mintech Experience’, London Business School Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1976, pp. 5–12.Google Scholar
3 Cmnd 5046.
4 HC 136 memo 25.
5 1978: The Applications of Semiconductor Technology; 1979: Industrial Innovation; Joining and Assembly: The Impact of Robots and Automation; 1980: Technological Change: Threats and Opportunities for the United Kingdom; Computer Aided Design and Manufacture; R and D for Public Purchasing; Biotechnology ‐ a joint report with the ABRC and Royal Society; Information Technology; 1981: Exploiting Invention; 1982: Facing International Competition: The Impact on Product Design of Standards, Regulations, Certification and Approvals; The Food Industry and Technology.
6 Cmnd 7499.
7 Science and Government, HL20, 1981‐2.
8 Cmnd 8591.
9 Cmnd 8957.
10 Civil Exploitation of Defence Technology.
11 The Steering Group on R & D Establishments, MoD 80/35, 1980.
12 HL 89‐1, 1982‐3, para 16.2.
13 A Programme for Advanced Information Technology, DoI, September 1982.
14 Cmnd 7194: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession.
15 Matthew Bullock, Academic Enterprise, Industrial Innovation and the Development of High Technology Financing in the US.
16 Standards and Specifications in the Engineering Industries.
17 Public Purchasing, NEDC (80) 44.
18 HC 89–1, 1982‐3.
19 Parkinson, Stephen T., ‘The Role of the User in Successful New Product Development’, R & D Management, 12, 3, 1982, pp. 123–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Wiener, Martin J., English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850‐1980, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
21 Nossiter, Bernard D., Britain A Future that Works, London, Andre Deutsch, 1978.Google Scholar