The UK government should be promoting and funding technology more strongly to compete in global markets, says the new director general of the Confederation of British Industry, Richard Lambert.

“I think where clusters have been established then there is a role public finance to support the technology, but it has to be driven by brains and demand, and there is a good strong cluster in the southwest region,” he said.

“I get very worried when I hear companies shifting stuff to Bangalore as I think it is important that we have design and intellectual property and the value added stuff that we have,” said Lambert, a former editor of the Finacial times and former member of the Bank of England’ interest setting committee.

“But we can’t make it happen by saying you can’t export design to Bangalore or China, and we shouldn’t try to prevent people shifting value to India. What we have to do is boost training and education and help to build bridges with universities. If you look around at the spin offs in electronic games around Liverpool, and the Cambridge phenomenon now has its own momentum, I am quite bullish.”

“We have good universities and the important thing is that the intellectual property is being developed and sustained and cherished in the region and in the country.”

“The CBI is very enthusiastic about the new Technology Strategy Board,” he said. This launched six areas of focus back in April, including a focus on electronics and photonics, and has £200m a year to spend up to 2008. “This is about being able to identify the areas for public funding and a shared focus on significant, demand-led business.”

The Foresight panel was meant to do this ten years ago but had little impact, and he sees a different way of backing innovation. “We don’t back winners,” he said. “We ask business to identify areas such as energy and government essentially plays a venture capital role and back it on a scale that makes a difference.”