Political support for government spending to deal with the economic aftermath of the COVID pandemic has grown. It is now greater than during the 2008 financial crisis, and ‘build back better’ pledges have multiplied. Ralf Martin, Sam Unsworth, Anna Valero, and Dennis Verhoeven have developed a new methodology that estimates the national return of government support for different technology areas and argue that a sustainable growth strategy can achieve net zero, improve productivity and contribute to levelling up, a win-win-win