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
- London
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Manchester
- Birmingham & the West Midlands
- Bristol & Bath
- Sheffield & Rotherham
- Leeds & West Yorkshire
- Liverpool City Region
- Newcastle & the North East
- Teesside & the Humber
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow & the Central Belt
- Belfast
- Cardiff & South Wales
- Southampton & Portsmouth
- Cornwall & Plymouth
- Nottingham & Derby
- Norwich & the East
Side by side
| Dimension | Norwich & the EastEast of England | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber | Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials |
| Research |
| Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Companies | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. | Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure. |
| Capital | Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. | Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital. |
| Government programmes |
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| What exists | Plant, food and genomics research of international standing, offshore energy operations and maintenance, and a significant agricultural production base on the doorstep. | The largest concentration of industrial decarbonisation activity in the UK: hydrogen, carbon capture, process manufacturing, biologics scale-up capability and two Freeports with substantial serviced industrial land. | Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland. | Skills pipelines and company formation. The land, power and permits exist; the innovation companies and the technical workforce to fill them do not yet exist at the same scale. | Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | 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. | Industrial land and process scale-up capability connected to research clusters elsewhere that have technologies without a place to build them: a national scale-up site rather than a regional one. | Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations: the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping. |
| UKIZ relevance | Food security and biotechnology intersect here more clearly than anywhere else in Britain, and connect to the proposed Oxford-Cambridge mission. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. | Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation