NEWS

CPC welcomes CBI’s new innovation report

Connected Places Catapult (CPC) welcomes the findings from the CBI’s (Confederation of British Industry) latest report, ‘Don’t wait, innovate’. The report, launched today (3 December), recognises the work the Catapult network has delivered to drive innovation in the UK and recommends additional investment to enhance its work through the creation of new ‘Catapult Quarters’.

The report really highlights the work done towards Innovation Programmes. Since its conception in 2013, the network of nine Catapults has delivered 12,379 industry collaborations, supported over 4,500 SMEs and 2,260 academic collaborations in its work with innovators and industry to prove and adopt breakthrough products, processes, services and technologies that support the growth of the UK economy.

CPC looks forward to working with the CBI in the coming months to develop the findings of the report, as part of our work with both regional and local authorities across to support thriving local economies, harnessing next-generation services and solutions to create the conditions for entrepreneurship, innovation and productivity.

Through previous work, CPC has already identified six common success factors that contribute to the innovation prosperity of locations. With help from world-leading urbanists, Connected Places Catapult gathered experiences from more than 30 global cities in order to understand the demand preconditions, location requirements, and interventions or catalysts that enable cities to host innovation economies successfully across different formats and scales.

From Belfast to Sharjah, exemplar innovation locations share these six common success factors:

  • Meaningful collaboration between innovators, mentors, investors, established business, and local leaders
  • Management by a highly capable organisation focussed on hosting and promoting the innovation community
  • Integration into the wider business ecosystem, allowing smooth transitions for firms as they scale and outgrow initial spaces
  • A whole place perspective that works with other public and private sector placemakers to boost the offer to innovation-oriented firms and talent
  • Proactive engagement with local skills supply and future skills demand
  • Appropriate balance between the scale of ambition and the resources available.

We look forward to sharing these insights, and more, with the CBI in the near future as we building on the findings of the ‘Don’t wait, innovate’ report.