GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty is calling for the U.K. government to invest $1.6 billion (£1 billion) over the life of the next Parliament to fund collaborative projects between academia and industry to advance innovation.

The report, which comes at the request of the government, follows a seven-month review by Witty of universities and how they can play a more effective role in driving economic growth. Witty is the lead independent director in the government’s department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The report argues that the United Kingdom is a world leader when it comes to technology and innovation, and that it is home to some of the best universities in the world. But to translate that advantage into international economic success, the report says, the government needs to simplify funding and provide a mandate to universities to drive economic growth.

“This country leads the world in many cutting-edge technologies and inventions. But too often we fail to turn these great ideas into successful companies that create jobs,” says Witty. “Our universities are key to changing this.”

Witty calls for the development of the “Arrow Projects”—developing cutting edge technologies or inventions where the United Kingdom leads the world, created with universities at their “tip,” —while local and national resources such as the Technology Strategy Board and U.K. Trade & Industry are “lined up behind them to create the maximum economic benefit and to support export led growth.”

The $1.6 billion (£1 billion) in funding would either be new money or redirected from existing programs. In addition, Witty calls for a “one stop shop” for funding rather than requiring multiple and complex applications as exist now.

“The future of the U.K. economy depends upon making the most of the knowledge, innovation and energy to be found in universities,” says Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of universities U.K. “This work is already happening but the report challenges us, quite rightly, to do more and outlines several significant ways in which this might be made to happen.”