Tech and Innovation Summit 2026

Registration and Networking

9.30am – 10am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 30 mins

Networking

Opening remarks

10am – 10.10am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 10 mins

Session

We begin by setting the scene for the key question at heart of this year’s Summit:  The UK invents more than almost any country its size, so why does it keep letting the value walk out the door, and what would it take to stop? 

Discover – turning our science into our companies 

The UK’s labs are among the best anywhere. This is about how much of what they find becomes a UK company, and how much becomes a footnote in someone else's.

Keynote speaker

10.10am – 10.25am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Keynote

A view from government on where technology sits in its plans for growth and national renewal: reindustrialisation, investment well beyond the Southeast, and a country prepared to back its own science before another country does. 

Panel – Out of the Lab: Turning UK Science and Research into UK Companies

10.25am – 11am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Panel session

Few countries the this size of the UK produce as much original research, and few are as good at letting the companies that should follow slip away. 

This panel gets into why: the tech-transfer terms that put founders off, the shortage of patient capital, and what it takes for a university or institute to back a spin-out properly rather than hold on too tight. 

Coffee break

11am – 11.15am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Break

Build – making it here 

Inventing something is the easy part. This is about whether we can build it at home, or keep shipping our prototypes overseas to be made elsewhere.

Keynote

11.15am – 11.30am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Keynote

Fireside chat - Lessons from a Founder

11.30am – 11.55am GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 25 mins

Fireside chat

A leading UK founder walks us through how they have built and scaled a deep-tech company from the UK, sharing insights into the capital, talent and infrastructure calls that made the difference, and the ones they would make differently. 

Panel – Building at Home: The UK’s Industrial Base

11.55am – 12.30pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Panel session

For decades the UK has designed things and then paid other countries to make them. The new government has put reindustrialisation at the centre of its plans, with money and attention pushed out to the nations and regions. 

From robotics and physical AI to low-earth-orbit compute and semiconductors, this panel asks what it would actually take to build our most important technologies here: the sites and grid connections, the supply chains, and the skilled people across every part of the UK.   

Networking Lunch

12.30pm – 1.20pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 50 mins

Break

Commercialise – getting it to market, and getting paid 

A brilliant demo pays no wages. After lunch we get into the customers, the capital and the rules that decide whether a UK breakthrough ever becomes UK revenue. 

Keynote speaker

1.20pm – 1.35pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Keynote

A view from government on turning the UK's scientific strength into companies, revenue and jobs in every part of the country. 

Panel – Buy, Back, or Get Out of the Way

1.35pm – 2.10pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Panel session

Good technology does not sell itself, and in this country the first serious customer is very often the state. 

This panel looks at the machinery that gets emerging tech to market here: public procurement as a first order, and the funding and demand signals that turn a pilot into revenue. When should government buy, when should it put real money behind a company, and when is the most useful thing it can do simply to clear the path and step aside? 

Debate – Should Government Back Winners?

2.10pm – 2.45pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Debate

Every industrial strategy runs into the same argument in the end. 

One side says a serious country picks a handful of technologies and companies and gets behind them, with procurement and public money, and that the UK's timidity is exactly why it keeps losing. The other says this is not the role for government, who instead should set fair conditions that enable UK companies of all sizes working across a range of technologies to flourish, before getting out of the way. 

In this debate, we aim to get to the heart of why this matters, what we’re currently doing, and what we should do next.

Coffee Break

2.45pm – 3pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Break

Scale – growing champions, and keeping them 

This is the stage the UK keeps fumbling. The last stretch is about getting our technology deployed at scale, growing the companies behind it into serious players, and, for once, holding on to them. 

Fireside Chat – Regulation as a Competitive Edge

3pm – 3.35pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Fireside chat

Regulation is either the reason a company deploys in the UK first or the reason it goes somewhere easier. 

This conversation looks at how faster, smarter rules, and bodies like the Regulatory Innovation Office, could make the UK the best place in the world to test and roll out new technology, from drones and robotics to engineering biology, and how to get there without a bonfire of the protections that are there for good reason.

Panel – Beyond the Pilot: Deploying at Scale Across the UK

3.35pm – 4.10pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Panel session

Plenty of UK technology gets as far as a promising trial and no further. The value is captured in the leap after that: getting proven technology into everyday use at scale, in hospitals, factories, high streets and skies, and in every region rather than a lucky few. 

Hear from speakers already deploying at scale as they share what it takes to get transformative tech into the places in every region, and what still stands in the way.

Debate – Does It Matter Who Owns Our Success Stories?

4.10pm – 4.45pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 35 mins

Debate

When a UK company is bought by an American giant, the founders win, the investors win, and the proceeds often fund the next wave of start-ups. So who cares where the head office ends up? Plenty of people, as it turns out. 

One side will argue that a sale is a success, and that fretting about sovereignty just starves founders of buyers and capital. The other argues that ownership is control, of the jobs, the tax, the supply chain and the strategic capability, and that a country which sells every champion it builds is running hard just to stand still.

The aim of this debate is to explore whether it matters, for the UK's economic and strategic interests, that successful British companies end up owned by foreign acquirers, or whether a sale should simply be seen as a marker of success regardless of who ends up owning it. 

Closing remarks

4.45pm – 5pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 15 mins

Session

A summary of the day’s discussions and a chance to reflect on where the UK is winning the value of its ideas, where it is handing it away, and the few things that would make the biggest difference. 

Networking drinks

5pm – 6pm GMT, 3 November 2026 ‐ 1 hour

Networking