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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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Dimension	Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West	Norwich & the EastEast of England	Liverpool City RegionNorth West
Sectors	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries
Research	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	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.	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.
Capital	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	Freeport East — Freeports	Liverpool City Region Freeport — Freeports
What exists	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.	Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation.
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.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.	Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region.
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.	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.	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.
UKIZ relevance	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.	Discovery and manufacture sit unusually close together here. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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