The U.K.'s "Eight great technologies"

Let's see, there was Jethro Tull and the seed drill, Newcomen and the steam engine, Harrison's marine chronometer, Babbage and his analytical engine...

Just kidding. Here's what HM Government thinks is important as of 24Jan2013. 
Notes from a speech delivered by the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, at the conservative think tank, Policy Exchange:

The ‘eight great technologies’ which will propel the UK to future growth receive a funding boost. Originally given at Policy Exchange. These are the speaker's notes, not a transcript of the speech as it was delivered.

In January last year I spoke at Policy Exchange about the importance of a high tech industrial strategy. There is a lot that government can and must do to drive the development of key general purpose technologies. Today I can update you on the progress we are making and announce where we’re providing more funding for these key technologies.

Vince Cable set out in an important speech in September 2012 our approach to industrial strategy. It is a long term approach across the whole of government, to give business the confidence to invest and grow. We are taking action to make this happen. Technologies and the broader research which underpins their development is a fundamental part of our approach to industrial strategy. Today I can set out new decisions to drive this forward.

We are fortunate to have a very broad science and research base. Indeed there is no other medium sized economy which has anything like our range of world class research activity. This is clearly demonstrated in the Research Council impact reports that are being published today. The reports illustrate the value to the economy and to society of the funding that we provide for science and research every year.

It is not just the Nobel prizes, the winners of the Fields medal and the world famous professors. Whenever there is a crisis, a civil war, or a coup d’état anywhere in the world we are likely to have a historian who has some understanding of the background, anthropologists who know the culture, and someone who can speak the language. This is an extraordinary privilege which we must not take for granted: citizens of very few other countries have such a wide open window on the world. The very range of what we do is one of our greatest assets, especially as great technological and scientific advances depend on breaking down the conventional barriers between disciplines.

We have the extraordinary advantage of being the only medium-size country that has such a range of scientific activities. We have world class scientific institutes and research intensive universities. This includes humanities and social sciences. It is not just STEM it is STEAM – Science Technology Engineering Arts and Maths. Reed Elsevier’s 2011 review of the comparative performance of the UK Research Base identifies ‘over four hundred niche areas of research in which the UK is distinctively strong’...MORE 

HT: Nanowerk who note:

David Willetts announced the following new investments today, totalling over £460 million:

– £189 million for big data and energy efficient computing to build on the research base’s capacity for analysing big data sets, in areas like earth observation and medical science – £25 million of additional funding for the National Space Technology Programme for the development of commercial products and services using space technology and data from space-based systems – £35 million for centres of excellence in robotics and autonomous systems to be created in and around universities, innovation centres, science parks and enterprise sites to bring together the research base and industry – £45 million for new facilities and equipment for advanced materials research in areas of UK strength such as advanced composites, high-performance alloys, low-energy electronics and telecommunications – £30 million to create dedicated R&D facilities to develop and test new grid scale storage technologies, helping the UK capitalise on its considerable excess energy production, saving money and reducing the national carbon footprint – £50 million for vital upgrades to research equipment and laboratories – £25 million to develop the Advanced Metrology Laboratory at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, allowing scientists there to undertake leading edge research in measurement science – £65 million for world-leading research institutes, focussed around the development of Rothamsted Research Campus, Aberystwyth, Harwell Oxford and SciTech Daresbury.