Briefing – Driving growth through regional innovation clusters

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08 July 2024

Russell Group universities across the UK play a crucial role as anchor institutions, collaborating with businesses, education partners and local communities to build and drive regional innovation clusters. By harnessing these partnerships, our universities draw in vital external investment, deliver regional growth, reduce inequality, and transform their local areas for the better with new infrastructure, homes and high-value jobs.

The research and commercialisation activities at Russell Group universities, such as the creation of new spin-out companies, wider knowledge exchange and Intellectual Property licensing,contributes £37.6bn to the UK economy annually, 1.5 times the size of the motor manufacturing industry. For every £1 of public money invested in Russell Group university research, more than £8.50 is generated for the UK economy. This is felt in all regions across the UK (see below).

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Our universities are located in major cities across the UK, and are already working to support the government’s Industrial Strategy missions across the UK, from the high-value manufacturing cluster in Sheffield to Cambridge’s life sciences technology cluster.

We look forward to working with government to maximise the impact of regional innovation clusters centred around research-intensive universities as it implements the new Industrial Strategy.

Find out more in our briefing.