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Innovate UK launches new four-year strategy with focus on “design in innovation”

Palmers Solicitors in Essex

Innovate UK, the country’s start-up accelerator has today launched its four-year plan setting out its strategy to promote business growth.

Entitled Design in Innovation strategy, 2020-2024, the plan will seek to “support excellent design in innovation” by encouraging businesses to “embed design within their processes and culture”.

To address this, the report will centre around four key themes, including: making the case for investment in design; reducing the cost of entry for those new to design; helping businesses access the best design talent, and helping businesses maximise the value contribution of design.

The four-year programme will also consist of new grant funding opportunities for “human-centred design activity”, as well as traditional and alternative finance routes.

The plan comes after a major economic study, published by McKinsey and the Design Management Institute (DMI), found that businesses with strong design capability outperform their peers by around 200 per cent in terms of revenue and shareholder returns.

This is achieved by delivering more valuable outcomes, reducing innovation risk, accelerating scale-up and improving business performance, the research found.

Commenting on the launch of the new four-year strategy, Dr Ian Campbell, Executive Chair of Innovate UK, said: “Over the last five years, our programmes of investment and support for design have produced impressive results. However, more can be done – despite the UK’s enormous strengths in design, there remains a significant opportunity for more businesses to exploit that potential: recognising, adopting and investing in the best quality design to innovate more effectively, compete successfully and grow faster.

“As this strategy demonstrates, for those businesses and organisations that truly embed design into their innovation processes and strategies, the potential benefits are considerable.”

Click here to access the report.

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Two in three parents fear hard-earned inheritance could be leveraged in children’s divorce settlement

Palmers Solicitors in Essex

Almost two in three parents are hesitant about handing over their hard-earned wealth to married children with fears that it may be handed over to spouses on divorce, a study has revealed.

The research, published by Handelsbanken Wealth Management, comes as divorce rates rocket as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the report, 67 per cent of parents are “holding back on financial planning” because they fear that their inheritance risked being handed over to children’s former partners “as part of a divorce settlement”.

It comes after almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of parents envisage that financial issues related to Covid-19 would lead to a “surge in divorce rates” – a prediction already confirmed by a national law chain, who revealed that divorce enquiries increased by 42 per cent in the months after the lockdown began.

Likewise, over a quarter (27 per cent) of parents had “little or no confidence” that their children’s marriages would last a lifetime, while one in six (16 per cent) felt their children’s spouses were “not good with money”.

Remarkably, one in five (19 per cent) parents had so little confidence in their children’s marriage that they have decided to give their inheritance straight to grandchildren.

Commenting on the study, author Christine Ross said: “The emotional and financial pressures of an enforced lockdown have tested many marriages and sadly for some, it will be the final straw.

“It is not unusual for parents to disapprove of their children’s choice of partner, but they can be equally reluctant to interfere in case they cause a family rift.”

Are you hesitant to hand over your inheritance to children? For advice, including support on how to craft a watertight Will, make cash gifts and create trusts to keep wealth in your family, please get in touch with our expert later life planning team today.