Methodology

Geographic boundaries

Government-designated areas — Investment Zones, Freeports, AI Growth Zones and Industrial Strategy Zones — are shown as shaded areas rather than points, because they are areas. Where authoritative published boundary geometry is available it is used; where it is not, an indicative extent is drawn around the designated location and labelled as indicative rather than exact.

Three things are always visually distinct on the map: existing ecosystem assets (circles), government designations (shaded areas) and UKIZ proposals (diamonds). UKIZ has no designating power and nothing on this map should be read as a government commitment.

Evidence and verification

Every cluster carries an expandable Sources & Evidence list and a Last Verified date. Descriptive statements about what exists are traceable to the sources listed against that record.

Statements about what is missing and what could connect are UKIZ interpretation. They are analysis, not data, and are labelled as such wherever they appear.

Inclusion

Inclusion is never sold. There is no paid placement, sponsored ranking or preferential visibility of any kind, and none will be introduced.

The map is deliberately not exhaustive. Adding hundreds of organisations to increase marker count would reduce its usefulness; depth, authority and accuracy matter more than volume. Nominations of clusters, organisations and corrections are reviewed manually against evidence before anything is published.

Data sources

The existing ecosystem is built from authoritative public sources: DSIT's Innovation Clusters Map for the geography of R&D and innovation activity, UKRI and the Catapult Network for research and innovation infrastructure, GOV.UK for place-based government programmes, and official university and institutional sources for research organisations.

Commercial directories are not used. Where a datapoint cannot be traced to an authoritative source, it is not published.

Definitions

An innovation cluster is a geographic concentration of research and innovation activity where universities, research institutions, companies and specialist infrastructure operate in close enough proximity to work with each other routinely.

An organisation is any institution, company, facility, investor or designated government programme with a physical presence inside a cluster.

Sector taxonomy

Industries follow a taxonomy aligned to the technology and sector families used across UK industrial policy. Each cluster carries primary sectors, where capability is a defining strength, and secondary sectors, where capability is present and growing.

This taxonomy is not the same thing as the eleven proposed UKIZ missions, and should not be read as such.

Geographical classification

Clusters are given a representative coordinate for mapping, not a boundary. Where innovation activity spans a corridor or city region, the cluster is named for the geography rather than a single town.

Nation and region labels follow standard UK statistical geography.

Cluster methodology

The first national view shows the major clusters rather than every individual organisation. This is deliberate: the purpose of the opening view is to show that innovation gravity already exists, not to display thousands of pins.

Organisations are attached to the cluster they physically sit in, and appear as the user moves from national to cluster level.

Organisation classification

Organisations are classified by type — university, research institute, Catapult centre, Innovation & Knowledge Centre, company, scale-up, investor, accelerator, specialist facility or government programme — and by the parts of the journey from research to export they support.

Descriptions are written as concise factual summaries. Marketing copy is never reproduced.

Update frequency

The dataset is reviewed periodically and every cluster profile carries a last reviewed date. The current dataset was last reviewed on 15 August 2026.

Limitations

This is a first release. It shows major clusters, research and innovation infrastructure and government designations. Company, investor and accelerator coverage is deliberately partial rather than superficially complete.

No proprietary index, score or ranking is published, because no defensible methodology for one exists yet. Where clusters are grouped as major or emerging for an industry, that reflects whether the sector is a primary or secondary strength, not a scored ranking.

Corrections

Anyone can suggest a correction or an addition through the form on the map page. Nothing is published automatically; every submission is checked against a source first. Inclusion is never sold.

UKIZ proposals

The eleven UK Innovation Zones shown on the map are strategic proposals made by UKIZ. They are not government designations, they are not outputs of any government dataset, and they should never be read as such.

They are always shown with a distinct marker and labelled as proposals. Government programmes — Industrial Strategy Zones, Investment Zones, Freeports and AI Growth Zones — are shown exactly as government designates them and are entirely separate.