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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	Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West	Liverpool City RegionNorth West	EdinburghScotland
Sectors	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries	Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries
Research	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	University of Edinburgh Heriot-Watt University
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Edinburgh financial services and fintech cluster
Infrastructure	Space and Earth observation capability, Cornwall Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure.	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.	National Robotarium Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability.
Capital	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.	Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	Liverpool City Region Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	Space launch and Earth observation capability, marine autonomy and ocean research, and a distinctive combination of coastline, test space and specialist facilities.	Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation.	One of Europe's largest informatics research bases, robotics and autonomous systems commercialisation capability, and a substantial asset management, banking and financial technology sector.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities sit a long way from capital, customers and complementary suppliers, and skilled people are hard to retain.	Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region.	A connection between the capital sitting in Edinburgh's financial institutions and the technology being created a mile away; and later-stage funding to stop companies relocating south.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Launch and Earth observation connected to Glasgow satellite manufacture and Harwell applications, and marine autonomy connected to Solent defence and offshore energy demand.	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.	Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production.
UKIZ relevance	The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors.	Discovery and manufacture sit unusually close together here. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography.	Scotland's research strength is not in question; its scale-up retention is. The proposed Scotland mission focuses on the capital and customer layer.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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