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UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#101

Post by notahacker »

madaxe_again wrote: post #83
notahacker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VC has quite specific expectations for an opportunity: the company that develops the service enjoying massive growth (or a massive strategic acquisition) within a decade or so. VCs weren't competing to fund Apollo missions or poverty reduction and not because nobody wanted them. Government can invest in projects which have different types of return: projects which are only beneficial or more beneficial if given away…

For an indication of how this will go, it’s worth looking at how the existing R&D grants system is used and abused. I have done a few “hold your nose” consultancy gigs for an outfit that specialises in the entirely legal, if morally dubious, process, of importing the family of high net worth individuals on entrepreneurship visas - and laundering their money into the U.K. I was approached in 2016, after I cashed out o…

Sure, I'm disagreeing with the principle that government investment has no place in a world where VCs exist rather than praising the design of this particular scheme (no prizes for guessing which former SPAD known for being almost as enthusiastic about zero accountability as science might have designed it...).

As I'm sure you know there are less um... creative uses of R&D tax credits and SEIS too, and I've heard some very strange entirely private sector funding arrangements ("but we don't need to worry about whether the losses on taking on this project with that obligation will burn our remaining capital, because someone who used to work at that company will be impressed enough to angel invest") proposed too. And some rank bad recipients of everyday properly tendered government procurement, for that matter.

And I presume oligarchs and money laundering operations actually want the paper trail to provide vaguely plausible explanations for being in London with the ability to write large cheques.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#102

Post by dalbasal »

hhmc wrote: post #84
dalbasal wrote: post #58

OK so the British HNers commenting seem to be unimpressed. :) Leaving this specific agency/project aside, what would be the right way to do this? How do we do public investment in high risk projects well?

Another approach is VCT/EIS, where private investment is incentivized via aggressive tax breaks.

Make the case. I'm fairly dubious of tax incentives generally. The system is so complex, with such an advanced loophole finding culture/industry...

OTOH... IDK anything about VCT/EIS specifically. Any good examples success stories?

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#103

Post by dalbasal »

lordnacho wrote: post #97
dalbasal wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this line of argument is that it applies to anything and everything done under the current conservative banner. IE, Torrie/Boris corruption is the only topic. Whether it's a British DARPA, new sewage plant, or change to the tax code, the only thing to say is " They're corrupt. This is just another pilfering. " I'm sympathetic to the focus on corruption. Corruption is bad. That said, I don't think the…

It's a good point, Labour did a bunch of PPI deals that didn't seem to benefit the public as much as the private collaborators. So it's not exclusive to one party, but the Conversatives have been in power for a fairly long time now. Long term we need transparency from whoever is in charge.

Sure, corruption and insiderism is an important topic in its own right.

Up and down this thread though, it seems that British HNers are insisting that it's the only topic. IE, they're against this agency (and presumably everything else that spends money in any way) because corruption.

Is this true for roads? No new schools, parks or research agencies until corruption is gone? It seems over the top to me. The "Boris' girlfriend gets a £100k grant" storyline is salacious, but I don't think it's unusual. Insiderism exists. It existed yesterday, last year. I'm sure Winston Churchill's girlfriend also did well out of the deal. c'est la vie

I'm definitely interested in ideas about insiderism, any solutions to it... but are you really at a point where you're against everything that the government does on the assumption that it's all going to Boris' girlfriends?

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#104

Post by arethuza »

Traster wrote: post #54

It's absolutely hilarious to watch a Prime Minister, who has previously given £100k in Tech funding to his mistress, now establishing an even bigger tech fund without the FOIA requirements so that he can... get away with giving £100k in Tech funding to his mistresses in the future I guess?

Maybe it will be used to fund new tunnelling and/or bridge technologies - the current government seems surprisingly keen on connecting NI to Scotland....

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#105

Post by 908B64B197 »

motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

> Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses

In Government? I chuckled.

> it will just become another grant vehicle for academics in the publish-or-perish regime

I can already see the selection committee, all from non-technical backgrounds, getting clear instructions on who to fund and who to reject based on the demographics the party wants to appeal to and existing donors.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#106

Post by JeanQuille »

dalbasal wrote: post #58

OK so the British HNers commenting seem to be unimpressed. :) Leaving this specific agency/project aside, what would be the right way to do this? How do we do public investment in high risk projects well?

As others have commented, I think the animosity against this announcement isn't necessarily that it wouldn't be successful, just that it's a clear attempt to widen and hush up the current government's already large grift pipeline.

FWIW, from my experience in UK public projects, I think the question of how to improve their varied success is complex and would take a long time to fairly cover. Though, off the top of my head:

* Pay market rates; non-private research seems to be struggling to attract and retain talent due to the lower wages, and without meaning to be unkind to anyone in particular, there is an evaporative effect where those that leave tend to be higher achievers that can find better offers elsewhere, so the organisation becomes increasingly mired and less functional over time.

* End the mentality of "promotion" meaning "to management", which eliminates at a stroke any meaningful technical contribution from the promotee. I think this one is improving lately, but it's taking a long time to undo the damage of the 1990s–2010s.

* Have advisers for scientific programmes at the level of policymaking, and *listen to them*. It's vexing enough from the outside, but an acquaintance employed in this capacity for the previous government described the scene from inside as "a shit show".

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#107

Post by hardlianotion »

908B64B197 wrote: post #105
motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

> Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses In Government? I chuckled. > it will just become another grant vehicle for academics in the publish-or-perish regime I can already see the selection committee, all from non-technical backgrounds, getting clear instructions on who to fund and who to reject based on the demographics the party wants to appeal to and existing donors.

That's not how current government funding for projects currently works - why is this so fundamentally different?

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#108

Post by uncledave »

jarmitage wrote: post #63

The FOI part means this is dead on arrival and will be abused all ends up. For this to work you need the public to understand why DARPA worked. Hiding details of failures makes that impossible (and again, completely open to corruption).

I dunno. Sounds like a fun environment to work in and accidentally leave an S3 bucket open :)

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#109

Post by SllX »

dalbasal wrote: post #82
oli5679 wrote: post #53

The USA's DARPA program funded important research into - The internet - GPS - Graphical user interface and mouse - Onion routing - Voice assistant Hopefully this program executes well. There is clearly a big social payoff to betting big on credible people doing risky research with high potential impact. https://www.itpro.co.uk/technology/34730/10-amazing-darpa-in...

DARPA gets used as an example a lot, so let's take it as a our type specimen. What makes an (D)ARPA? What (besides funding) made it work? Is secrecy and/or low accountability important? Defense/weapons focus? Was the cold war a necessary condition? Do they have an investment philosophy that could be copied? Managerial philosophy? Is high level stuff even relevant or is it details like 5 year PM appointments and selec…

A focus.

DARPA research is performed in response to real challenges that service members and officers are faced with, and also in response to new capabilities that our adversaries develop.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#110

Post by addicted »

motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

They are unlikely to be more efficient than VCs but that’s not really relevant when VCs have completely different goals and incentives than what the government may need.

If there was an effective way to enlist VCs while aligning goals then they would opt for it.

Space exploration is a good use case here. The US government has found a way to align its goals with that of the private space industry and is therefore seeing tremendous efficiencies. However, because of a whole bunch of reasons (largely because there was a lot of basic open ended R&D that needed to be done) this alignment was probably not possible in the 60s and NASA was more successful.

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