Britain’s think tanks are getting into tech – POLITICO

LONDON — Rishi Sunak isn’t the only tech geek in SW1. Britain’s ideas factories have clocked tech policy now drives decisions across government and they want to join the party.

As Britain’s political parties mull their policies ahead of an election expected next year, and British lawmakers grapple with how to boost economic productivity, the think tank sector is hoping tech policy ideas catch their attention.

Over the past 12 months a raft of think tanks have hired dedicated science and technology point people, with a growing number of researchers now working on innovation issues from how to regulate artificial intelligence to what the U.K.’s research and development tax regime should look like.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the government advisory outfit set up by the former Labour Party British prime minister, now has more than 60 people working on tech policy on issues from digital governance to life sciences, artificial intelligence to digital infrastructure.

The institute hit the headlines last month when Blair teamed up with the former Conservative leader and ex-Foreign Secretary William Hague to push a proposal for everyone to be given a digital ID incorporating their passport, driving license, tax records, qualifications and right to work as the cornerstone of a “technology revolution.” 

Politicians often see tech as a “side geeky issue,” Benedict Macon-Cooney, chief policy strategist at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) said. It’s actually the “central change happening in the world today,” he added, explaining all of the institutes’ politics and policy teams work on tech.

The center-right think tank Onward, whose former Director Will Tanner is now Sunak’s deputy chief of staff, launched a science and technology “pillar” last August, which will be staffed by three dedicated researchers.

The free market Adam Smith Institute has a new hire working on a policy paper on the safety of artificial intelligence. The Centre for Policy Studies, a stalwart of SW1 policy wonk world which boasts Margaret Thatcher as one of its founders, appointed its first head of tech and innovation last July.

“We’d found ourselves doing more and more on innovation and regulation, and having more and more conversations about it. With our focus on growth and enterprise it seemed like a natural step to build a proper workstream around it,” Robert Colvile, the Centre for Policy Studies director, said.

“After Brexit we need to do all we can to make the U.K. more competitive and position it for future growth, and obviously tech is a huge part of that and an area of huge potential for the UK,” he added.

Colvile claims his own think tank, among others, had “led the way” in pointing out flaws in the Online Safety Bill over the regulation of so-called “legal but harmful” content, which he says was a “misguided idea.”

On the issue of research and development tax incentives — a policy which has dominated the tech conversation in the run up to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget on March 15 — Onward published a research paper back in November outlining what it sees as the flaws in the current regime, with suggestions for reform.

Funding sources

Of course, Big Tech, like much of the corporate world, has long been willing to put money into such work. While there is no legal requirement for think tanks to reveal who funds their work, available information suggests tech companies are among those who have contributed cash.

In its latest half-yearly transparency announcement covering the second half of 2022, Onward disclosed donations from tech companies including Amazon Web Services, Meta, Google and Zoom. Its work is also funded by donations from foundations including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Youth Futures Foundation and Citizens Advice.

In recent years Demos has received funding from Twitter and Google, as well as the non-profit Open Rights Group and European Science Foundation. A spokesperson for the think tank said it always discloses the funder on every paper it publishes.

The TBI lists Microsoft Philanthropies as a partner on its website, but Macon-Cooney said none of the institute’s income had come from a tech company in 2022. Meanwhile the Adam Smith Institute’s Connor Axiotes said the think tank’s donors included small businesses and individuals interested in the liberalization of economic policy, but they didn’t divulge their backers because a lot of them wanted to “give money without having the heat associated with economic think tanks.”

CPS has accepted funding from tech companies for specific reports in the past, including from Deliveroo on tech unicorns, and Facebook, on small and medium-sized businesses and the digital economy, but its wider science and technology work is supported by general funding, the source of which the think tank does not routinely publish.

Making their mark

With self-confessed tech enthusiast Sunak in No. 10 Downing Street, think tankers are banking on getting good traction for their work.

The establishment of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology last month has put tech policy high on the government agenda, and with big questions around digital regulation and fiscal policy looming, there is a lot for think tanks to get their teeth into. 

“As the tech sector has grown there’s been more and more interest in both supporting it and regulating it — so it makes total sense for think tanks to turn their attention to finding answers to policymakers’ questions,” Dom Hallas, executive director of the Coalition for the Digital Economy, said.

The government is aiming to get its content regulation legislation, the Online Safety Bill, onto the statute books by the fall, the latest iteration of its data reform bill was published last week, and ministers have said its artificial intelligence white paper, and digital competition bill will both come soon.

Ellen Judsom, who heads Demos’ Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, which was founded eight years ago to study how the online world is changing society, said the packed policy agenda meant they had a lot on their minds. 

“It’s important to be able to bring a kind of evidence base, and make the case for [the laws] to be as strong and effective as they can be,” she said.

With a general election expected next year, Westminster’s think tanks also have an eye on the future, and the opportunity to get their policies onto the legislative agenda.

“It’s coming up to a time where they’re going to start thinking about writing their manifestos, and they’re going need some beefy tech stuff,” the Adam Smith Institute’s Connor Axiotes optimistically pondered.