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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	Sheffield & RotherhamYorkshire and the Humber	Liverpool City RegionNorth West
Sectors	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Mobility & Transport Technology, Digital Technologies	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries
Research	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	University of Sheffield	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.	Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre Nuclear AMRC High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres, nuclear manufacturing facilities and industrial research factories.	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.	Public co-investment, corporate partnership and asset finance rather than venture capital.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	No place-based designation recorded.	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.	One of the strongest applied manufacturing research bases in Europe, covering machining, materials, nuclear manufacturing and factory-scale process development, working directly with industrial customers.	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.	Domestic demand. World-class process capability is often demonstrated for overseas primes, and local SMEs lack the capital to adopt what is proven a mile away.	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.	Applied manufacturing research connected to domestic customers — energy, defence, mobility and medical technology — with procurement used as the connector rather than grants.	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.	The research is world class; the domestic customer base for what it produces is thinner than it should be. The proposed Midlands and Teesside & Humber missions both depend on this capability.	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 · not a government designation

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