Scotland's National Innovation Summit: Deputy First Minister's speech

Good morning. It’s absolutely wonderful to join you this morning and to see it's such a full audience discussing and celebrating Scotland's innovation.

And I think that one of the challenges I've often reflected on over a number of years of being responsible for our economic growth and development is that even when we get things right and we're really, really good, we don't often celebrate it.

We have a sense of humility to downplay what our businesses, our entrepreneurs, our founders, are doing.

And I think today and this week is an opportunity to really shout from the rooftops what is being achieved here in Scotland.

And from a government perspective, it's a great opportunity for me to celebrate you in this room, to celebrate all those who are the inventors, the ingenious people, who are coming up with the ideas, who are starting the businesses and then who are scaling it to create that sense of innovation, that momentum right across Scotland.

As most of you may know by now, both Richard (Lochhead) and I are stepping down at the next election, which is in about 6 months. And it means that we've got six months to try and do as much as possible to showcase and to celebrate what has been achieved.

And at the risk of quoting somebody who may or may not be in the room, but who you have the privilege of hearing from later, the step change in excitement, optimism, hope, activity, what is going on when it comes to innovation and our businesses, is really exciting,

It just means that some of the stuff that we've all been doing together collaboratively over the last few years is working, and we need to make sure that we have those messengers to share what is going on in Scotland across the world.

So let me begin my remarks by thanking Karen Meagan and the entire team at Scotland IS for helping to make this summit possible, but also for all the work that goes on when we aren't gathered in these rooms to make that sense of optimism and hope real.

I also want to acknowledge Scotsoft, which is running alongside today's summit. Its continued leadership in Scotland's tech sector is a vital part of our innovation journey.

Scotland's National Innovation Week marks a turn. It's, yes, a celebration of Scotland's innovation legacy, but it's more than that.

It's a declaration of intent and intent to lead, to collaborate and to transform, because we're very conscious that innovation is not just confined to labs and boardrooms. It's got to be a national endeavour.

We all have a stake in that success. We all have an opportunity to benefit from that success, but we also all have a responsibility to contribute to that collaboration and that finished national endeavour.

It's the quiet breakthroughs in classrooms. It's the bold experiments in start ups. It's the strategic pivots in our public services. It's a spirit of asking “what if?” and the courage to pursue answers. And here in Scotland, that spirit runs deep.

But innovation isn't just about what we invent. It's about how we apply it. It's about how we scale it, how we embed it into the fabric of our economy and our society.

And that's why this week matters, because it brings together the people who make innovation happen, and it challenges us all to do more.

As Deputy First Minister, I see first hand the power of innovation to drive change across every sector, whether it's improving patient outcomes in the NHS with the use of AI, decarbonising our transport systems, driving sustainable economic growth through Scottish Edge and our Ecosystems Fund.

Innovation is the thread that connects progress and as a politician who represents communities in Scotland, I hear every day how desperate our people are to see that innovation, because they care immensely about the sustainability of our public services and about outcomes.

And through these challenging times, it will be innovation that delivers what they want to see.

But that progress doesn't happen by accident. It requires intention. It requires targeted investment, and above all, it requires collaboration and often strange, unlikely alliances that don't often happen.

So today, I wanted to use my speech to talk about three things that we need to do to turn Scotland's innovation ambition into reality. We've got to connect, we've got to empower and we've got to scale.

Innovation thrives in networks. It depends on relationships between researchers and entrepreneurs, between government and industry, between communities and institutions.

And I believe that we've made progress on building a more connected innovation ecosystem, but we've obviously got to do a lot more. And that means strengthening regional innovation hubs, supporting cross sector partnerships, from tech clusters in Dundee to the life sciences hubs in Aberdeen, and initiatives like CivTech prove that public sector challenges can unlock private sector creativity.

That spirit of collaboration must extend beyond government and industry into the lives of people and communities across Scotland. Because every community, whether those in my own patch of the Highlands and Islands all the way through to urban centres like the one we're based in right now, have to have a voice in shaping Scotland's innovation economy.

Secondly, we need to empower by trusting our innovators with the tools and the freedom that they need to experiment. That starts with education and nurturing creativity and problem solving, from early years through to lifelong learning.

And having just dropped a three year old off at nursery, and they are some of the most creative I see, not least because every time she comes home she's covered in paint.

But we're lucky to have world class universities and colleges in Scotland, and we're investing to ensure that they are equipped to translate research into real world impact, which in turn drive Scotland's economic transformation.

And we've got to empower our entrepreneurs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. We're putting Pathways recommendations into action, breaking down long standing barriers and expanding access to entrepreneurship for those historically excluded.

Because when we widen the lens, we unlock new perspectives, new ideas and new solutions.

One of the interesting side products, of course, of empowering, is how you manage risk, and through some of the work that we've done over the last few years, in terms of setting up the Scottish National Investment Bank, as well as some of the initiatives through the Ecosystem Fund, we have tried to embrace risk to a greater extent than perhaps the public sector is often comfortable with.

Now that means I end up being dragged to Parliament to answer questions about all sorts of things. Because there's a perception in the public sector that risk is bad, and therefore we shouldn't take those risks.

But to empower entrepreneurs to seek innovation requires the public sector to be more comfortable with risk and not to flinch when some of those investments aren't successful, because that is the nature of risk.

But it's a fascinating debate that is currently happening, I would say, in our parliament and in the public sector.

The third point is around scaling. We need to scale. We've got no shortage of brilliant ideas. I hear brilliant ideas on a daily basis, and we're making real progress in turning those ideas into global successes, thanks to initiatives like Techscaler which have already built the foundations of our truly world class innovation ecosystem.

We're supporting our startups and scale ups with better access to finance, to talent and to international markets. We're strengthening the pathways from research to commercialisation.

This year, we're investing almost £3 million through a Proof of Concept Fund to support researchers to develop their innovative ideas and technologies and bridge the gap between groundbreaking research and commercial applications. And we're working to create a regulatory environment that enables innovation rather than inhibits it.

But we do need to be bold on our ambitions, because if you set your targets low, you will meet them and pat yourself on the back. But it's not really the scale I think that we want to see.

Innovation is a core pillar of our overall economic strategy, a 10 year National Economic Strategy. And today, I'm pleased that our third annual report has just been published. It shows that we've already delivered many of the actions that we committed to back in 2022 to grow Scotland's economy.

Some of the innovation milestones from the past year include unlocking new opportunities for high value clusters with £5 million provided to support Scotland's high growth industries.

We've established a Deep Tech Super Cluster to support companies on their journey to manufacturing at scale. We've established the Scottish Technology Council to provide expert insight into the opportunities and the challenges facing our tech sector.

We launched our AI Scotland programme, including a pilot scheme for SMEs that positions Scotland as a creator and supplier of AI technologies. And the report also sets out the actions that we're taking over the next year to drive innovation.

I hope that today's summit has shown what is possible when we align ambition with action and then set the foundation for what comes next. We don't just want to be a participant in global innovation. We want to be a leader.

We need to rise to that challenge. Innovation requires trust, openness, shared purpose. It requires us to listen, to learn, to lead.

So researchers in the room, keep pushing boundaries and imagining what's possible.

To our entrepreneurs, be bold, take risks, build the future. We absolutely back you.

To our educators, inspire curiosity and help us to unleash the next generation of innovators.

And to our investors and partners, I want to be clear that as the summit has shown today, Scotland is open for business.

Together, we can continue to build an innovation nation that's resilient, that's inclusive and globally competitive. A nation that isn't just trying to adapt to change that is driving it too.

And so let me close by saying that the future is not something that we're all sitting here waiting for. It's something that we shape.

And here in Scotland, I firmly believe that we've got the talent, we've got the vision, we've got the determination to shape it.

So the only thing that's left is us to get out here, after the summit today, after Innovation Week, and to redouble our efforts.

Keep doing what you're doing, but do it more, knowing that you have got friends, allies and partners right across Scotland, willing you on to be as successful as possible, as an innovator that shapes the future. Thank you.