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Join the freight
Join the freight
innovation cluster
A leading Initiative in the Department for transport’s Freight Innovation Fund programme, brought to you by Connected Places Catapult
The freight Innovation cluster (FIC) Is a robust network of members operating in the freight Industry, which regularly engage and work collaboratively towards joint opportunities.
With more than 180 organisations, encompassing Industry, academia, local authorities and larger players, the freight Innovation cluster is far from being only a community. It presents itself as a vibrant environment where member organisations connect, showcase their challenges, seek solutions through meaningful commercial partnerships, as well as co-design joint processes and ventures.
What is an innovation cluster?
An Innovation cluster often refers to a group of organisations geographically located in the same area, sharing the same Industry focus, and interacting in a collaborative, yet competitive, way.
The Freight Innovation cluster revolutionises the way clusters operate. Its strategic focus on the governments freight strategy and commercialisation, rather than being a limitation, represents an opportunity and enables it to act as a catalyst, convening the freight sector and reducing the barriers to innovation. FIC’s goal is to create a solid ecosystem of places and solutions, that, powered by togetherness and collaborative Innovation, can become the backbone of the UK freight Industry.
The freight Innovation Cluster is a catalyst for:
01
Engagement
FIC is a suitable environment for members network, establish compatible professional relationships, share challenges, and seek ad-hoc support.
02
Upskilling
Relationship building, and innovation showcasing brings knowledge into the cluster. Members can learn from each other and mutually upskill, leading to a win-win scenario.
03
Matchmaking
It can happen with the help of the Innovation cluster programme manager who facilitates new dialogues. Matchmaking can also happen organically and sustainably.
04
Delivery of Tangibles
Support members with the delivery of impactful tangibles, including advancement of innovative products, growth in capital, support to internationalisation, and exporting. Finally, economic development more widely.
The Freight Innovation Cluster is committed to raising awareness around the breadth of opportunities this industry offers. By changing the narrative around the sector, FIC hopes to more attractive to professionals of all ages, and more accessible across all societal sects. Finally, FIC encourages equity, diversity, and inclusion within the industry.
How to join the cluster
Join the Freight
Innovation Cluster
Diagnostic call and pre-
programme questionnaire
Ready for engagement
Engagement in activities, progression programmes and open calls
National Highways Hazard Protection on Roads Accelerator
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A Roadmap to Innovation-led Prosperity
Ambitious approach to leadership, strategy and investment key to enabling innovation-led prosperity in UK’s largest cities
Sam Markey
Ecosystem Director
Place leaders across the UK, their business partners, and national policy makers all share the desire to see more UK cities take advantage of the innovation economy’s potential to:
- Improve local productivity;
- Increase investment in UK R&D, particularly from private sources;
- Deliver more inclusive and sustainable growth; and
- Provide answers to the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems.
Achieving this ambition is essential to the future prosperity of the UK’s population and the viability of its cities and economy. In this new three-part series, A roadmap to Innovation-led Prosperity, we lay out the opportunity, diagnose the challenges to be overcome and propose a suite of practical actions which can empower more places across the UK to navigate their way to an innovation-led future of sustainable growth and prosperity.
Join the conversation
Whilst focused on cities and other urban areas as primary clusters of innovation, and the subject of the RSA Urban Future Commission which this work is intended to support, the proposals in these papers are relevant to many other places including towns and rural areas across the UK and we would welcome a wider dialogue with anyone working to foster innovation-led prosperity.
Part 1 – The Opportunity of the Urban Era
Explore the state of the UK’s urban innovation landscape, discover its enormous potential and where it risks falling behind global competitors.
Part 2 – Seizing the opportunity
Discover three areas of practical action place leaders can take to navigate the barriers and accelerate innovation-led prosperity in their own areas, illustrated by examples of pioneering practice from across the UK.
Part 3 – A Place-centric Path to Prosperity
Transform the destiny of your city with resources to help place leaders put the Roadmap’s insights and ideas into action, including a new ‘Typology of City Pathways’ with recommendations tailored to the distinctive histories, assets, strengths and challenges of different cohorts of UK cities.
sector
“Procurement policy doesn’t allow it”
This is often why pioneering place leaders are missing out on creative and innovative opportunities to help solve their pressing service and policy challenges
Sam Markey
Ecosystem Director – Place Leadership
About smarter spending
The UK public sector spends £300bn a year buying good, services and works from the private sector. UK local government procurement alone accounts for £60bn a year. This represents a huge market and a significant lever public authorities can use to create and shape markets.
However, despite all this potential to drive strategic outcomes, public procurement is largely under-exploited as a mechanism for sparking and scaling innovation. The UK Government’s Innovation Strategy notes “a low appetite for risk and experimentation” in public procurement, due to “the overall culture, expertise and incentive structure of the public sector”. As a result, UK public procurement is still largely characterised by procedures which over-specify on requirements (leaving little room for innovation) and select based largely on price. Faced with a whole box of tools, procurement professionals invariably reach for the same procedure each time.
By procuring more innovative solutions, the public sector can be a driver of innovative new ideas, providing innovative firms with the foothold they need to succeed in the market, fuelling the scale-up ecosystem and facilitating wider adoption of new tech services. At the same time, procuring more innovative products and services can lead to better and cheaper public services in the long run.UK Government, Leading the future by creating it: Innovation Strategy, July 2021
INNOVATION PROCUREMENT EMPOWERMENT CENTRE (IPEC)
Our aim is to up-skill public sector buyers in innovation-friendly procurement approaches, leading to greater regional R&D activity and private sector investment.
Through IPEC we will inspire and empower public authorities to adopt new procurement behaviours through practical support, the creation of robust evidence which makes the case for change and collective action.
sector
IT IS RECOGNISED THAT ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY IS UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE UK.
Is often why pioneering place leaders are missing out on creative and innovative opportunities to help solve their pressing service and policy challenges
Sam Markey
Ecosystem Director – Place Leadership
About Hubs of innovation
The towns and cities with the highest productivity and growth tend to have harnessed innovative products and services, creating the right conditions for success. As global strategist Parag Khanna puts it, “Connectivity is destiny”. A place cannot change its location, but investing in its connectedness – whether physical, digital or social connectivity – can create new opportunities.
The development and implementation of connected places innovations that deliver greater mobility, access, optimise land use, improve decision making, foster new public spaces and points of human interaction are therefore integral to both the revival of regional economies and the sustained success of the UK’s existing engines of innovation.
“Connectivity is destiny. A place cannot change where it is located, but by investment in its connectedness it can create new opportunities.”Parag Khanna
Connected Places Catapult has worked with a range of public and private sector place leaders to seed and stimulate local hubs of innovation both in the UK and globally.
From the Belfast City Region to Sharjah in the UAE, we have experience partnering with places to help unlock new economic potential through the adoption of new technologies and innovative approaches. We help seed and scale new and existing hubs of innovation by mobilising local and regional ecosystems around a shared plan and attracting investment.
Building on that experience, we have generated a range of new analysis and guidance to help more places spark new hubs of innovation activity or amplify the impact of existing ones.
Document
Report
The many faces of the innovation hub
What does it take for innovation to happen within a place? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but there are some important ingredients.
JOIN THE DOTS
Joining the Dots brings city leaders together to build connections around the shared challenges and opportunities and areas of economic strength for businesses in their respective regions by creating a safe space for confidential discussions
INNOVATION DISTRICTS GROUP
The Innovation district group enables the delivery of, and maximise the benefits from, innovation districts and knowledge quarters. These new forms of urban geography are places where different sectors and uses intersect to drive innovation and inclusive growth.
FREEPORTS INNOVATION NETWORK
The Freeport Innovation Network (FIN) is a collaboration vehicle for Freeports to shape and orchestrate their innovation activity as a collective.
INCLUSIVE INNOVATION NETWORK
The Inclusive Innovation Network aims to deliver faster growth and more equitable prosperity by challenging the industry to champion inclusivity as much as it drives innovation.
