Demos, one of Britain's most influential think tanks, warned on Wednesday that Britain is set to be sidelined in a global scientific revolution within ten years unless it urgently scales up its collaboration with the rapidly growing innovation hotspots of China, South Korea and India.

The think tank gave the warning in its new report The Atlas of Ideas launched here on Wednesday at an international conference on science, innovation and globalization, taking place on Jan.17-18 and attended by leading British and Asian scientists.

The Atlas of Ideas contains four reports, with three reports looking in depth at the pace and scale of scientific innovation in India, China and South Korea respectively, and the fourth outlining how Britain should respond. The Atlas of Ideas is the most comprehensive study yet of emerging innovations in these countries.

The Atlas of Ideas overview report warns that Britain faces tough strategic challenges from China and India whose innovation capacities are still developing. It urges Britain to act now or it will be too late within ten years.

The report holds the view that the rise of China, India and South Korea will remake the innovation landscape, the United States and European preeminence in science-based innovation cannot be taken for granted and the centre of gravity for innovation is starting to shift from west to east.

"The rise of Asia will inevitably challenge our position in knowledge-based industries. More knowledge based jobs will go offshore. Research and development will become more international. In the long run, China, India and South Korea will start to earn more from exploiting their own intellectual property, and our share of income from intellectual property may decline," the report says.

"However, it would be extremely short-sighted to view these developments purely as a competitive threat," it says, adding Asian innovation will open opportunities as well as pose challenges: European innovators will find new consumers to sell to and new partners to work with and more researchers, with better tools, will be more able to tackle global challenges, such as climate change and new pandemics.

Innovation in Asia may accelerate development and raise incomes, creating a larger market for British services, and innovators in Britain may also be more productive if they can collaborate with Asian partners with complementary skills, for example in the application and development of technology, the report suggests.

It said Britain must respond by investing more in collaboration with the rising scientific powers in Asia, in order to meet the big global challenges confronting science. It should attract and retain links with the best scientific talents to ensure that Britain stays at the centre of the global innovation network, and invest more in tracking developments in the Asian scientific arena.

It recommends the creation of a 100-million-pound (200 million U.S. dollars) global research and development fund to take British capacity for international collaboration to a new level, a Darwin Scholarship program to bring 200 Asian scientists a year to Britain, and the creation of public knowledge banks, along the lines of the Human Genome project, to provide an open and shared base for innovation.

Demos' research focuses on five areas: cities, culture, identity, public services, and science. Its partners include policy-makers, companies, public service providers and social entrepreneurs. And its international network extending across Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Brazil, India and China provides a global perspective and enables the think tank to work across borders.

Source: Xinhua