Scottish Innovation Strategy

That the Parliament welcomes the publication of Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy; recognises its vision for Scotland to become one of the most innovative small nations in the world over the next decade as a key part of delivering a greener, fairer, wellbeing economy; recognises Scotland’s potential to become a world leader in four key areas of the economy, which are energy to address the climate emergency, health and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and data and digital technologies; welcomes the strategy’s four programmes, which are a national network of clusters in key sectors, a renewed investment and support offer for businesses, a new framework for realising the commercial and community benefits of research, and a new programme focused on supporting businesses to become active in innovation and improve their productivity; recognises that the Scottish Government will measure and evaluate Scotland’s innovation performance and compare this to similar nations on an annual basis; welcomes the extensive engagement, consultation and joint working with industry, academia, entrepreneurs, investors and the public sector that helped develop the strategy; notes the successful examples of innovation taking place across the country; recognises the important role of enhanced employee engagement and alternative ownership models in fostering innovation, and understands the significant opportunities for Scotland, and its businesses, entrepreneurs, workers, communities and universities, to grow and scale its excellence in innovation and technology to become recognised globally as a world-leading innovation nation.