Innovation

London is one of the leading global cities and is ranked as a 'top city for business' with world class strengths in finance, business and professional services, health, media, entertainment and retail.

In an ever increasing global economy, the only comparative advantage a business will enjoy is its ability to innovate.

Successful innovation comes about by commercial exploitation of new ideas as a result of market and technology know-how, coupled with design and creative talent.

This ultimately delivers new or enhanced products, processes or services that increase individual business profits.

Knowledge generation is the key to fuelling business growth and competitiveness and this can be achieved by the uptake of innovation by a business.

Access to London's knowledge base which consists of universities, further education colleges, research institutions and businesses, are the key to inspiring new innovations through knowledge transfer of cutting edge design and creativity.

The London Development Agency (LDA) focus on innovation is to support the long-term competitiveness of London's economy by embedding innovation and design practices as key drivers for growth across the business community.

The Innovation Programme is based around these core activities:

• Raising awareness and providing innovation and design support for businesses to adopt.
• Facilitating and brokering access to the knowledge base and the business community in order for knowledge transfer to take place.
• Increasing the importance and understanding within business of protection and exploitation of intellectual property.
• Providing investment readiness and early stage finance to bring new products to market.