Beyond Arts and Sciences: Why Entrepreneurship is Britain’s Vital Third Culture
Entrepreneurship Third Culture
Remember CP Snow’s famous 1959 lecture, “The Two Cultures”? He skewered British literary elites who dismissed scientists, even presuming the title “intellectuals” excluded giants like Einstein and Bohr. While Snow’s core observation about a damaging cultural split still resonates, the landscape has shifted. Today, every ambitious parent pushes STEM, and humanities graduates rarely sneer at scientists. Yet, the pervasive idea that you belong to either the arts or science camp persists.
But a recent visit to Oxford sparked a new thought: Is the most critical divide today actually between entrepreneurs and everyone else? Perhaps Britain’s starkest cultural gap isn’t arts versus science, but between the bold doers – those who take risks, move fast, and turn brilliant ideas into reality – and those who fundamentally don’t grasp that entrepreneurial spirit.
Walking through Oxford’s science parks, the evidence was tangible. The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), funded by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison with over £100 million, rises like a beacon. Giant cranes punctuate the green landscape, serving spinouts like Oxford Nanopore and the burgeoning EIT itself. This isn’t just another research hub; it’s a colossal incubator, tackling global health, energy, and environmental challenges while taking equity stakes in promising startups – actively bridging the notorious “valley of death.”
This valley of death is where too many great British scientific ideas perish. We excel at innovation but often falter at scaling, lacking the crucial early-stage capital to commercialize here, not overseas. Ellison’s massive investment is a powerful vote of confidence in UK science, research integrity, and our latent enterprising spirit. If a titan like Ellison believes so profoundly in British potential, shouldn’t we reclaim that belief ourselves? Britain is currently mired in a narrative of decline – low growth, unsustainable debt, social fractures.
Like many, I feel that national melancholy. Yet, the antidote is clear: spend time with entrepreneurs – both business and social. These individuals don’t wallow when obstacles loom; they pivot and persevere. Britain remains fundamentally an enterprise nation; we just undersell it.
Our pandemic scientific response proved this brilliantly. Despite governmental stumbles, UK science delivered: lightning-fast virus sequencing, the globally life-saving AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, and identifying dexamethasone. This success stemmed from relatively flat hierarchies fostering open collaboration across disciplines and borders, and crucially, from seamless partnerships with business and ministers willing to bend rules for breakthroughs.
That wartime agility suits us. In crisis, the British state can move fast, take calculated risks, and empower experts. Yet post-pandemic, the old inertia returned. Predictable gripes surfaced: objections to investing in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc (“send it North!”), planning hurdles for the EIT, and even criticism that Ellison should fund only “pure” research, not profitable ventures. This obstructive mindset wrongly assumes publishing papers is nobler than building things, and that scattering public funds thinly is better than bold bets.
This cultural resistance must change. We can’t romanticise the plucky startup then scorn its success. We desperately need the next DeepMind to scale in Britain, not sell to California. Bridging the disconnect between lofty government papers on productivity and actual delivery is key. Labour’s “industrial strategy” prioritises cutting crippling industrial electricity costs, yet these very costs now threaten data centre plans. Instead of reducing burdens, new taxes and punitive labour laws emerge. The core challenge is cultural.
In the US, professors running startups is normal. Here, academic entrepreneurs are often seen as distracted, not dedicated. Few UK scientist-founders are household names, often shrouded in self-deprecating modesty. It’s time to be far less British about celebrating their achievements – and crucially, about getting them to market. Embracing entrepreneurship as our vital third culture isn’t optional; it’s essential for Britain’s future prosperity. We need to champion the doers who bridge the gap between discovery and real-world impact.
