Innovate UK

Innovate UK

Formation	1 July 2007 (as the Technology Strategy Board)
Type	The UK's innovation agency
Legal status	Non-departmental public body
Purpose	To accelerate UK economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation
Headquarters	North Star House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, SN2 1UE
Region served	UK
Chief Executive	Dr Ruth McKernan CBE
Main organ	Governing Board (Chairman - Phil Smith)
Parent organization	BEIS
Affiliations	European Network of Innovation Agencies
Budget	c.£400m
Website	innovateuk.gov.uk

Innovate UK is the operating name of the Technology Strategy Board, the UK's innovation agency. It is a UK non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government reporting to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BIES).

In August 2014 the Technology Strategy Board fully adopted the name Innovate UK.

Innovate UK has its roots as an advisory body - the Technology Strategy Board - established in 2004 within the former UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), before becoming an independent body in July 2007 after the reorganisation of the DTI into the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) under Brown's government.

The original Technology Strategy Board had its roots in the Innovation Review published by the DTI in December 2003 and the Lambert Review. This reconfigured the major funding mechanism as the Collaborative Research and Development Technology Programme, transformed the pre-existing Faraday Partnerships into Knowledge Transfer Networks, renamed the Teaching Company Scheme as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and set up an Advisory Board made up of 12 people from business, venture capital and regional government. These changes all took place in 2004 - with the Advisory Board being appointed in October of that year.

In the 2006 Budget Gordon Brown announced the intention to set up the Technology Strategy Board as a "non-departmental public body" operating at "arm's length" from the UK Government. It was decided to locate the new organisation in Swindon, and to recruit a team primarily with business experience.

In August 2014 the organisation adopted the name Innovate UK, and began a transition to use the new name in all its communications. However the legal name of the organisation currently remains as the Technology Strategy Board.