The executive chair of Innovate UK has welcomed the decision to move the Tech Department into the Business Department, with hopes it will create a joined up effort to support the commercialisation of British research.
In an interview with UKTN, Tom Adeyoola, who has served as executive chair of Innovate UK since April 2025, discussed how he sees the organisation working as part of the Business Department.
Among the first major changes in government structure made by Prime Minister Andy Burnham was to scrap the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), with the bulk of its remit being moved into an enlarged Business Department under the name the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), headed by Johnathan Reynolds.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is the organisation responsible for funding and supporting scientific research and emerging innovative companies.
With an enormous annual budget and responsibility over a large remit of British research and technology, Innovate UK was among the most significant organisations that operated under DSIT.
Though much of the tech industry warned against a major disruption to the government’s work in the tech industry that would come from the restructuring, Adeyoola told UKTN that the move “re-establishes” a longstanding relationship between the science and technology end of government and the business end.
An experienced entrepreneur himself, Adeyoola said that aligning the goals of organisations like Innovate UK with the Business Department can support the UK’s wider goal of commercialising its “world-class research” and growing the tech industry.
He said that the strategy he launched when he took the helm of Innovate UK was “very much about creating pathways in the industrial strategy sectors” and “pulling through breakthrough ideas where we have the research-based talent pipeline and industrial strength that gives us a right to win”.
Therefore, he believes that worked under Reynolds’, who was behind the flagship industrial strategy that centred tech and innovation, is a positive.
“It does very much make sense for us to to have that full connection within the Business Department to ensure that we are commercialising and translating the incredible breakthrough ideas that we generate here in the UK,” he said.
Adeyoola took charge of Innovate UK in 2025 after having worked closely with key Labour figures during their time in opposition.
As an entrepreneur he contributed significantly to the Start-Up Scale-Up Review on behalf of then shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, which has formed a major basis for Labour’s current economic plan regarding supporting tech businesses.
He has described his move to a government role as a “tour of duty”, claiming that it is “incongruous” for entrepreneurs to complain about the UK’s potential “not working and then not go and do anything about it…if there is a problem, go fix it”.
Adeyoola described the greatest challenge and opportunity for the UK to capitalise on its tech potential is to make the most of its “unfair advantage”, that being its “universities and the IP that is generated from them”.
“If we can do that, I think we can enter a really expansive period for the UK built on these technologies.”
Tom Adeyoola is set to discuss the challenge of supporting the UK’s deep tech ecosystem in scaling and commercialising effectively at Cambridge Tech Week, which will take place in September 14-18.
