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Creative
Clusters
Golden Research Triangle
The already very well established
Golden Research Triangle between
Oxford, Cambridge and London
is becoming ever more important.
Driven by world class research
universities, it has become a globally
significant biomedical, medical and
technology cluster with a cutting-
edge focus on pharmaceuticals, life-
sciences and bio-technology.
Almost half of the UK’s 183,000 life
science jobs are concentrated in the
region, and the cluster itself provides
highly skilled employment for 36,000
people. It invests more in R&D than
any other sector in the UK and
accounts for around 30% of the UK’s
total R&D spend. The area boasts five
of the world’s top medical research
universities.
As well as its strong science base,
the South East offers life sciences
companies an ideal place to conduct
medical trials, mainly because of the
genetic diversity of London’s 8 million
population.
The Golden Research Triangle
makes a good case to be the strongest
bioscience cluster in Europe and the
fourth in the world. A study conducted
last year by Ernst & Young for the BIA
(The BioIndustry Association) put the
UK ahead of Germany and Switzerland
(measured by the number of biotech
products being developed).
Although dwarfed by the USA, the
UK has the largest source of private
sector funding in Europe. However, as
the EU is the largest source of public
sector funding, Brexit poses a risk to
the sector and the cluster.
A major support component for the
Golden Research Triangle, and in fact
for the UK’s significant opportunity in
medical diagnostics, is the medical big
data capability provided by clusters
such as the one in Harwell.
The creative industries are becoming
more important in local economies.
Forty-seven creative clusters have
been identified across the UK. Rapid
growth has been experienced in all
sub-sectors including advertising,
film, radio and TV, architecture,
publishing, music and performing
arts. Service activities such as design,
software and digital have been doing
particularly well.
London and the South East are
major components of the UK creative
industries and together comprise
around a third of all clusters in the
sector. Other ‘hip creative cities’ include
Brighton, Cardiff, Nottingham, Leicester,
Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In addition to London, which has
2,577 tracked entities and is the
largest and best known digital
tech cluster, there are another 31
recognised clusters across the UK.
In Scotland, Dundee, home of the
Beano and Dandy, has long boasted a
thriving games sector on the back of
its media creativity and is also home
to the University of Abertay which
provides courses in related subjects.
Similarly, Edinburgh is the location
for two billion-dollar companies in
Skyscanner and gaming start-up
Fanduel.
In the north of England, Leeds
and Sheffield are developing their
digital base and have an economy
of £3.4bn per year between them.
Sheffield is marketed as the ‘maker
city’, while Leeds is the ‘data city’ and
has a strong focus on FinTech. Across
the Pennines, Manchester is setting
itself up as the engine of the Northern
Power House and is aiming to build
on its media and financial clusters
to become one of the top 20 digital
cities in the world by 2020.
Further south, Cambridge has
long been one of the UK’s most
dynamic technology centres. It has
connections with the university and
local expertise in deep tech such as
artificial intelligence and internet
security. Global success stories
include ARM, Cambridge Silicon
Radio and Autonomy, all of which
have been swallowed by large
global tech conglomerates.
In telecoms, there are notable
clusters at Harwell in Oxfordshire
and in Ipswich on the back of BT’s
Adastral Park.
Reading has traditionally
dominated along the M4 corridor
and 21.7% of its companies focus on
tech. However, other centres such
as Slough, Maidenhead, Newbury,
Swindon, Bristol, Bath and Cardiff
all have strong local clusters.
Belfast’s thriving tech centre
has been a surprising success story
in recent years and the city is now
home to a host of digital start-ups
in ecommerce and SAAS. Northern
Ireland not only has low overheads in
terms of rent and staffing but it also
has a large talent pool across many
disciplines.
Digital Tech Clusters
Biotech Clusters
Creative Businesses
Clusters
PERSPECTIVES
06
LEAD STORY