Michael Gove calls for a British DARPA to increase UK technology investment

Gove calls for a UK DARPA as part of a technology investment push

Conservative Party leadership hopeful Michael Gove has called for the creation of a British equivalent of America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) - not unlike the old Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), which was dissolved in 2001.

One part of DERA was rebranded QinetiQ and privatised in June 2001, while the less money-spinning parts were renamed the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and retained in the Ministry of Defence.

However, in a bid to goose-up low levels of investment in technology, former education secretary Gove has proposed effectively re-creating DERA, inspired by the perceived success of DARPA, and spending more taxpayers' money on technology-based research.

"The total amount we spend as a nation on research and development is significantly less than countries such as the US, and government spending on research and development has been less than the OECD and EU average," claimed Gove.

He continued: "I am not an instinctive advocate for higher government spending. But the evidence from the most successful start-up nations - US and Israel - is that thoughtful government investment in science triggers a culture of innovation more widely that generates the businesses of the future.

"The internet was a government creation - developed by the American government's scientific incubator DARPA - and the amazing creativity in Silicon Valley is a function not just of America's more effective venture capital system but of government leadership.

"More and more thinkers have made a compelling case for a leading role for government in creating a more entrepreneurial state. And that must be the right course for Britain - creating our own equivalent to DARPA, providing the capital for new tech innovation and helping the tech sector grow even faster," said Gove.

The speech today was part of Gove's pitch to the Conservative Party to support him in the up-coming Party leadership elections, which will also determine who is the next Prime Minster in succession to David Cameron, who resigned last Friday in the wake of the referendum vote in favour of leaving the European Union.

Other contenders in the election, which should be concluded by early September, include the favourite Theresa May - the Home Secretary who has been in charge of piloting the draconian Investigatory Powers Bill through Parliament - and Minister of State for Energy Andrea Leadsom. Outsiders Stephen Crabb, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and former defence minister Liam Fox are very much outsiders.