Scottish Enterprise sets out three-way mission

Scotland’s economic agency has set out three new “missions” that promise to unlock thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of investment.

Scottish Enterprise said it was targeting a future economy “benefiting all of Scotland” with its new strategy focusing on energy transition, innovation and productivity - the last ofthosebeingaconsistentarea ofunderperformance.todeliver this, the agency is changing thewayitworkswithbusinessesandentrepreneurs,pledging to help them to grow through the introduction of a “missionbased approach”.

Itpointedtoasimilarfocused approach it had adopted 20 years ago, when it identified low levels of investment in early-stage companies and business research and development (R&D) spending as barriers to growth. The agency re-focuseditsresourcestosupport companies to tackle these challenges,resultingin“significant improvements” in performance in the years since.

As part of its latest initiative, dubbed Our Focus on Economic Transformation, Scottish Enterprise will target the high growth opportunity areas of energy transition, including offshore wind and hydrogen production, space, photonics and quantum technology, industrial biotechnology, life sciences and fintech - financial technology. It said that its mission to scale innovation alone was expected to help businesses create more than 60,000 jobs and enable companies in these industries to generate almost £14 billion in additional annual turnover by 2030.

Scottish Enterprise chief executive Adrian Gillespie said: “Scotland has a phenomenal opportunity to harness its unique capabilities to transform the economy and now is the time to sharpen our focus to help drive this.”