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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	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	LondonGreater London
Sectors	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Financial Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Creative Industries, Digital Technologies Supporting: Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Engineering Biology, Defence & Security
Research	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	University of Nottingham	Imperial College London University College London King's College London Queen Mary University of London The Alan Turing Institute The Francis Crick Institute
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. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	Digital Catapult Connected Places Catapult Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Level39 University laboratories, teaching hospitals, data centre and compute capacity, and the densest transport network in the country.
Capital	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	London venture and growth capital ecosystem Venture, growth and public market capital at a scale unmatched elsewhere in Europe, plus corporate venture arms and international investors with UK offices.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands 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.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	Four research-intensive universities, the deepest venture and growth capital pool in Europe, financial regulators, the largest concentration of applied AI companies in the UK and a global-scale creative production economy — all within one travel-to-work area.
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.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	Circulation. Capital, talent and corporate demand concentrate in London rather than flowing outward, so capability elsewhere in Britain competes for attention with opportunities on the investor's doorstep. Cost also pushes production and scale-up activity out without a route back in.
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.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	London as the demand and capital node of a national network: investors, corporate buyers and regulators deliberately connected to complementary manufacturing, materials and energy capability in the North, Midlands, Scotland and Wales.
UKIZ relevance	The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	London's problem is not capability, it is direction of travel: capital and talent gravitate here rather than circulating. The proposed London zone focuses on using that density to fund and buy from capability elsewhere in Britain.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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