UK Innovation Map

Compare placesDifferent, not ranked.

Two or three clusters, read side by side across sectors, research, companies, capital, infrastructure, government designations and UKIZ relevance. There is no score and no ranking: British clusters are different from one another, not better or worse than one another.

Choose up to three clusters

Side by side

Dimension	Newcastle & the North EastNorth East	Liverpool City RegionNorth West	Norwich & the EastEast of England
Sectors	Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies
Research	Newcastle University Durham University	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult Offshore renewable test facilities, battery production investment and university research centres.	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.	Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.
Capital	Infrastructure and development finance, with limited venture capital relative to industrial scale.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.
Government programmes	North East Investment Zone, Investment Zones	Liverpool City Region Freeport, Freeports	Freeport East, Freeports
What exists	Offshore renewable energy testing at national scale, battery and electrification investment, ageing and life sciences research and a strong engineering base.	Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation.	Plant, food and genomics research of international standing, offshore energy operations and maintenance, and a significant agricultural production base on the doorstep.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Supply chain retention. Britain builds offshore capacity while importing much of the equipment; local firms often serve as installers rather than manufacturers.	Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Offshore testing capability connected to Teesside and Humber industrial land, Sheffield manufacturing research and domestic energy buyers. That is an energy supply chain rather than an energy market.	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.	Agri-food and genomics research connected to national food manufacturing and to engineering biology capacity, and offshore operations connected to the Humber and North East energy supply chain.
UKIZ relevance	The region has the industrial land, the ports and the skills base. The proposed North East mission focuses on retaining the supply chain, not only the assembly.	Discovery and manufacture here are unusually well connected, with scale-up routes that are already in use. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography.	Food security and biotechnology intersect here more clearly than anywhere else in Britain, and connect to the proposed Oxford-Cambridge mission.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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