Spectrum sale can spur science revolution Later this year the UK will begin to auction its 4G mobile spectrum. The process is expected to raise up to £4bn. How we choose to spend that windfall will say a lot about our commitment to long-term economic growth. At the height of the financial crisis, government and opposition called for an "industrial strategy." Four years later there has been no "rebalancing of the economy" or "march of the makers." The 4G auction is a golden opportunity for the government to show it is serious. The government will no doubt be tempted to put the proceeds of the auction into tax breaks, or other short-term stimulus measures. The shadow chancellor Ed Balls has called for the money to be spent on building affordable housing and a stamp duty holiday. Although these suggestions are well-intentioned, they do not address the fundamental problems with our economy. Innovation is integral to economic growth. Britain used to excel at this. The telecommunications industry owes its existence to the UK's rich scientific history. Our innovators gave the world radio, mobile phones and the internet. The success of these technologies depended not just on research and commercial acumen, but also on public support. Marconi's demonstration of wireless telegraphy in 1886 was backed by the General Post Office. Government funding helped Sir Tim Berners-Lee invent the web at Cern. James Clerk Maxwell, whose work on electromagnetism underpins today's wireless technologies, made many of his breakthroughs in our university system. Unfortunately, investment in innovation by British businesses has been falling for more than a decade. Companies squandered the prosperous years from 2000 to 2007, by investing in bricks and mortar and stockpiling reserves while spending on innovation gently declined. Since 2008 it has dropped precipitously, by about £24bn. The last decade has been an age of cash and concrete. The government's focus on transport infrastructure and the opposition's pursuit of house- building risk prolonging this concrete fetish for another decade. That is why we are calling on the government to reinvest the 4G windfall in the UK's scientific and technological potential. While £4bn would be a drop in the ocean of debt relief or homebuilding, it could make a significant difference to science and innovation. The imminent windfall gives us the chance to bridge the "valley of death" between research and commercialisation. The auction proceeds would enable us to double the government's most successful (and hugely oversubscribed) technology development programme for small businesses, create new "challenge prizes" to emulate the Ansari X Prize that helped kick off the private space industry and create new funds so that government could deliberately set out to develop and procure innovation as is common in the US. We also need to make sure we have the talented people and research base, so we could invest to hire talented science and maths teachers, fund early-career academics in high-tech fields and attract the world's top researchers to the UK. And we have to make sure we have the right high-tech infrastructure - whether that is scientific labs or large-scale technology demonstrators - rather than just focusing on planes, trains and automobiles. All of this would not only provide an immediate stimulus, but put us on the road to a sustainable, high-tech economy which is better equipped to cope with future financial shocks. Moreover, the experience of the world's most innovative economies, from the US to South Korea and from Israel to Finland, shows that public investment in innovation leads to greater private investment, which is for the good of the whole economy. The UK is incredibly privileged to have the science and technology base that we do. In the mobile spectrum auction we also have a once-in-a- generation opportunity to invest in that base and drive economic recovery. If the government takes the opportunity, it will not be remembered for slogans and aphorisms, but as the administration that harnessed innovation to secure our economic future. The writers are chief executive of Nesta and director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering