Britain's entrepreneurial spirit is thriving, the government has claimed – partly attributing the renewal of an "innovation culture" to BBC2's Dragons' Den.
The UK Intellectual Property Office says that in the first three months of this year, 30 per cent of patent applications, numbering more than 1,800, came from individual inventors.
According to science and innovation minister Malcolm Wicks, Dragons' Den, where would-be innovators pitch their ideas to business tycoons in a bid to win financial backing, has helped to promote a new culture of entrepreneurship.
"Britain remains a nation of inventors, taking their ingenuity from the garden shed to commercial success," he is expected to say this morning at the launch of a new scheme to promote innovation among schoolchildren.
The addition to the national curriculum, supported by wind-up radio inventor Trevor Baylis and Aardman Animations, will see children aged nine to eleven encouraged to develop their own entrepreneurial ideas through new lesson plans, activities and competitions.
Aardman Animations' Nick Park, who created Oscar-winning characters Wallace and Gromit, commented: "Inventiveness has always been central to Wallace's character and I have sketch books full of Wallace's eccentric inventions that have never made it to the screen.
"It is fantastic that Wallace and Gromit can excite young kids about innovation in the classroom."
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