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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.

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Side by side

Dimension	Birmingham & the West MidlandsWest Midlands	Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West	Norwich & the EastEast of England
Sectors	Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Defence & Security	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies
Research	University of Birmingham University of Warwick WMG	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	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	Energy Systems Catapult UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Automotive research centres, battery and vehicle test facilities and major logistics assets.	Space and Earth observation capability, Cornwall Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure.	Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.
Capital	Corporate and supply chain finance dominate; venture capital is thin relative to industrial output.	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.
Government programmes	West Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones	No place-based designation recorded.	Freeport East — Freeports
What exists	The largest manufacturing base in the UK by employment, automotive and electrification engineering, rail and mobility research, and a young, large working-age population.	Space launch and Earth observation capability, marine autonomy and ocean research, and a distinctive combination of coastline, test space and specialist facilities.	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	Ownership of the value in electrified vehicles: battery, power electronics and software increasingly sit outside the region and outside the UK. Innovation-active SME supply chains are under-capitalised.	Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities sit a long way from capital, customers and complementary suppliers, and skilled people are hard to retain.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Midlands manufacturing paired with battery and power electronics research, North East battery production and Coventry testing capability as a single electrification value chain.	Launch and Earth observation connected to Glasgow satellite manufacture and Harwell applications, and marine autonomy connected to Solent defence and offshore energy demand.	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's transition depends on owning the new value in a vehicle rather than assembling someone else's. The proposed Midlands zone focuses on batteries, power electronics and software.	The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors.	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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