Imperial partners on new Westminster growth report

Imperial has partnered with leading Westminster think tank the Institute for Government (IfG) to publish a report on how government can design better growth policy.

Written by Senior Fellow at the IfG and former No. 10 senior economics adviser, Giles Wilkes, the report makes the case that strong leadership with a clarity of purpose and the attention and resilience to pursue goals long-term is essential, and that a well-resourced No. 10 with strong economic advice mechanisms and a remit to make difficult, strategic political recommendations is necessary for successful delivery of priorities.

To provide for a stronger, more capable and strategic No.10, the report recommends that government should:

• Focus No.10 on setting direction and resolving political problems
• Set up No.10 to avoid being a centralising team  
• Bring in more expert advice into its top team, so that economic thinking isn’t left to the Treasury, but can sit equally with the prime minister.  

The report cites science funding as an example of successful, consistent policy delivery: 
“Many of the most enduring successes of the last 20 years touch on science and R&D. Those close to where government and science overlap relate a simple but compelling reasoning for this: spending on R&D generates a significant economic return, established with diligent analysis. Politicians are reliably convinced by the case thanks to accessible story-telling by the science community – it is not just a matter of numbers in a Treasury spreadsheet. Crucially, the funding is not simply doled out but channelled through highly respected institutions: foremost, long-established universities that compete on the international stage for talent. 

"A reasonable balance is struck between autonomy of science organisations and oversight of how public money is spent. It is still the government’s decision how much overall fiscal resource is sent towards science, and the balance between tax measures and different ways of spending money (competitive project by project grants versus institution-centred funding based on past quality, for example). But the arm’s length ‘Haldane principle’ that keeps politicians out of specific funding decisions still applies.” 

The ecosystem Imperial has created exemplifies this policy success. Imperial’s entrepreneurs have and continue to create significant economic growth across the UK, with Imperial student startups and staff spinouts having raised £1bn of investment in the last five years and supported over 5,500 jobs in 2024/25 alone. 

Imperial’s Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance (CSEP), established in 2023 with a grant from Lord Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation, was set up precisely to work with government and industry in high growth sectors to better establish their respective roles in improving growth and productivity, and to act as a broker and facilitator between the two in order to develop robust and resilient sector growth strategies.

CSEP is playing a critical role in ensuring that these sector growth plans think long-term, are resilient to political cycles, and focus crucially on the delivery and implementation of recommendations. Notable examples of these to-date include the Cyber Growth Action Plan, which was laid in Parliament by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the HealthTech Sector Growth Strategy, several recommendations from which have since been adopted by the government in its Life Sciences Sector Plan.