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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	Liverpool City RegionNorth West	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	BelfastNorthern Ireland
Sectors	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing
Research	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	University of Nottingham	Queen's University Belfast Ulster University Centre for Secure Information Technologies
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Northern Ireland aerospace and composites cluster
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities.
Capital	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US.
Government programmes	Liverpool City Region Freeport — Freeports	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	Cyber security research and commercialisation of international standing, aerospace and composites manufacturing, agri-food research and a fast-growing software sector.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	Scale-up capital and market access. Companies reach a ceiling and are acquired, and dual-market access advantages are under-exploited commercially.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	Belfast cyber capability connected to UK defence and financial services demand, and composites manufacturing connected to Bristol and Midlands aerospace supply chains.
UKIZ relevance	Discovery and manufacture sit unusually close together here. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	Northern Ireland's position between two markets is a commercial asset that is under-used. The proposed Northern Ireland mission treats it as the organising advantage.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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