North West · England
Manchester
Invent the material, test it in a city that builds things, and still be in the Peak District by lunchtime.
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation
Can you get in?
Capability access in Manchester
Facilities, entry routes and the conditions attached to them. Where Manchester does not hold a capability, the national route is named instead.
Available here
Capability the evidence places among organisations and facilities in this field.
Materials characterisation
Mass Spectrometry Spatial Biology Microscopy Preclinical Imaging Specialist services – Pioneering the next generation of precision medicine.
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Large research instruments
[](https://md.catapult.org.uk/news/kq-labs-accelerator-2025/)
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Safety and regulatory approval
Global credibility: Our environment is built for regulatory credibility & 8211; whether your next step is the FDA, EMA and MHRA.
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Coworking to leased CL1 and CL2 laboratory space
Laboratory ladder from shared coworking benches with managed equipment to leased CL1 and CL2 floorplates up to 15,000 sq ft.
Alderley Park, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire
How you get in: Enquiry or viewing with the campus leasing team
Conditions: Shared, serviced or leased terms depending on stage; shared labs include equipment and operational support
Source: Alderley Park - Lab Space · verified 2026-08-19
AI and GPU compute
[](https://md.catapult.org.uk/news/kq-labs-accelerator-2025/)
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Secure and trusted data environments
Clear direction and structured guidance, helping us define a robust product development plan and streamline our vision into actionable steps.
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Imaging suites
Mass Spectrometry Spatial Biology Microscopy Preclinical Imaging Specialist services – Pioneering the next generation of precision medicine.
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Collaborative R&D programmes
R&D Consultancy Collaborative R&D Knowledge Transfer Partnership Proprietary technology – Uncover unique innovations available only through our research.
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Clinical and human-factors evaluation
[The BARBARA Alliance launches to accelerate dementia clinical trials and unlock new treatments](https://md.catapult.org.uk/news/accelerating-dementia-clinical-trials/)
Medicines Discovery Catapult, Alderley Park, Cheshire
How you get in: Collaborative R&D or service agreement with Medicines Discovery Catapult
Conditions: Project agreement; national centre working with UK SMEs
Source: Medicines Discovery Catapult - Capabilities · verified 2026-08-19
Access with conditions
Real capability, on terms worth knowing before you plan around it.
Early-phase clinical research facility
NIHR clinical research facility supporting early-phase and experimental medicine studies with NHS patients.
NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
How you get in: Study feasibility enquiry through the facility and NIHR adoption process
Conditions: Requires an adopted study, regulatory approvals and a sponsor agreement
Source: NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility · verified 2026-08-19
Access evidence last verified 2026-08-19.
The place
Manchester industrialised first, and it has never really stopped rebuilding itself. The same square mile holds the university that isolated graphene, a health system running research at population scale, the largest broadcast and creative campus outside London, and a start-up economy that grew up in converted mills rather than science parks.
It is a city of about 2.8 million people across Greater Manchester with a student population large enough to change the character of whole neighbourhoods. That matters for innovation: materials scientists, clinicians, engineers, designers and broadcasters live within a few tram stops of each other.
- Red brick and glass, not campus sprawl
- Two Premier League clubs and a serious music inheritance
- A city centre you can cross on foot in half an hour
- The Peak District within an hour by train
- Northern directness: people will tell you what they think of your idea
Why Manchester?
Big-city ambition without London being the only answer.
- A materials institute of national standing, a health system doing research at population scale, and a digital economy large enough to change job to job without changing city.
- Two Premier League clubs, a music inheritance that still exports, and a restaurant and nightlife economy that runs seven nights.
- A housing and workspace cost base well below London, which is why a lot of people who trained here stopped leaving.
- An airport with direct long-haul routes, so family and customers can reach you without changing in the South East.
- The Peak District close enough that the countryside is a decision you make on a Saturday morning, not a holiday you book.
It is a working city, not a picturesque one. Manchester rewards people who want scale and pace over calm.
What's happening here
Britain is building, and a lot of it is here.
Each item below is a real programme, institution or development with a named source. UKIZ does not publish claims it cannot point at.
Britain's national materials institute is headquartered here
The Henry Royce Institute, the UK's national institute for advanced materials research and innovation, is hubbed at The University of Manchester and works across partner sites nationally.
Henry Royce Institute ↗Graphene moved from discovery to production engineering
The National Graphene Institute handles the research; the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre exists specifically to help companies scale 2D materials into products.
The University of Manchester ↗A city-centre innovation district is being built on the old campus
ID Manchester, a joint venture between The University of Manchester and Bruntwood SciTech, is redeveloping the former North Campus into an innovation district for research-led companies.
ID Manchester ↗Health research runs at population scale
Greater Manchester's devolved health and care partnership works with its universities and hospitals on research and data across a population of around 2.8 million.
NHS Greater Manchester ↗The largest media cluster outside London
MediaCity in Salford hosts BBC and ITV production alongside digital and creative-technology businesses.
MediaCity ↗
What this place is good at
Strengths, from the canonical record.
- Advanced materials, including graphene and 2D materials
- Health innovation and clinical research at population scale
- Digital, cyber and data services
- Broadcast, media and creative production
- Advanced Materials
- Life Sciences
- Digital Technologies
- Creative Industries
- Artificial Intelligence
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Financial Technology
- Engineering Biology
DSIT cluster data identifies Greater Manchester as one of the largest innovation clusters outside the South East.