They were slow to react. Before Germany emerged, they had faced rising American competition during 1895-1900.
Also, they were never aware that their national electrical industry, not to mention chemical industry, was a mess until after ww1 (well, unlike after ww1, before ww1 they had more than enough money to intervene). Each region had a different set of electrical standards, which made it difficult to mass produce electrical equipment for the whole country. I mean, the CEB should have been established 2 decades ealier than IOTL
About R&D, to be fair, Britain undertook the 1st Industrial Revolution without the need of systemic scientific research, so it could be lukewarm toward state-backed R&D.