If you ask me, the reason why the UK has relatively low innovative capacity is because it's labor market is culturally retarded. In the UK, entrepreneurs have no time to be imaginative - you graduate from University, start your 'career' in your early 20s, and it's game over - switching costs are very high, because skills aren't seen as transferable across industries/positions/etc. So you don't have the kind of time to try out a variety of positions, industries, and roles as is common in the States - and this is where innovation, especially recombinative innovation, comes from.