Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
8
We asked the Department and UKRI why it had not ensured that the taxpayer benefited...
Conclusion
We asked the Department and UKRI why it had not ensured that the taxpayer benefited from any intellectual property generated as a result of successful commercial development paid for by the Fund.19 The Department told us that securing intellectual property was not the purpose of the Fund—instead it was to accelerate R&D expenditure more generally. UKRI recognised that it was important to consider how to ensure a return on public investment, but added that it was not clear that retaining intellectual property rights was necessarily the best way to recoup the benefits of an investment. In its view, securing intellectual property was neither “...simple, cheap or low energy”. It told us that it was considering alternatives such as taking an equity stake in some investments.20 We sought assurances from UKRI and the Department that they would seriously think about how the public purse can benefit in the event of any “commercial successful roll out that has benefited from this bridge funding from the public purse.”21 The Department agreed to look at whether there might be specific exceptions to its current position.22 The Department subsequently wrote to us to explained that the Intellectual Property Office was working on “how to ensure that the Government receives a financial reward for its innovation and taxpayers are getting value for money going forward.”23 Meeting the R&D spending target
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: July 2021 2.2 The government with UKRI will review the current approach to intellectual property (IP) and consider the issues raised in the Committee’s report and will write to the Committee by July 2021. This will include examining the rationale and evidence for the current policy to determine whether any changes are needed. 2.3 More broadly, the government recognises the value and importance of Intellectual Property in the wider economy and the public sector itself. In April 2021, the government published The Mackintosh Report which set out the government’s plans to get better value from public sector knowledge assets along with new draft guidance for public sector organisations on how to identify, manage and derive maximum value from public sector knowledge assets (intellectual property, research and development (R&D), data and know- how). This built on the recommendations of a 2018 report1, which found that public sector knowledge assets were undervalued and that limited support existed to better utilise these assets.