Connected Places Catapult responds to Industrial Strategy consultation
The Connected Places Catapult welcomes the Government’s consultation on a new Industrial Strategy. As the UK’s innovation accelerator for transport, cities and place leadership we are excited about the opportunity this represents. We are encouraged by the strong focus on the importance of unlocking the complexities of place, as well as the role that data and digital technologies have to play in raising the economic productivity of our cities and regions.
As the Resolution Foundation and others have demonstrated, the UK struggles with the dual challenges of low growth and high inequality, which has left us lagging our European peers in terms of living standards and productivity. Closing that productivity gap would yield incredible returns – an additional £100 billion in gross value added (GVA) per year. According to the Centre for Cities, hundreds of thousands of new jobs would be created if UK core cities achieved productivity levels equivalent to their European counterparts.
An Industrial Strategy that recognises the importance of place, connectivity and innovation is critical to that endeavour.
Place as a driver for successful sectors and clusters
We welcome the fact that the Green Paper articulates the important role of place. It is also encouraging to see cities explicitly referenced as places that require focus given the important role that they can play in driving economic growth.
We recognise the Government’s need to focus the outputs of the Industrial Strategy around sectors to maximise the potential for long-term sustainable growth. But the economy is a matrix of both places and sectors. We would encourage the Government to ensure that there is no disconnect between the Green Paper’s recognition of the importance of place and the focus on sectors.
A strictly sectoral focus does not allow for challenge-based emerging sectors to occur. In our experience ‘emerging sectors’ occur where technological capabilities with place-based applications are applied across sectors. This often happens as opportunities to work with government and industry create new commercial propositions that respond to place-based challenges.
We also support the focus on clusters and basing investments on robust analysis of strengths and opportunities. We caution against an overreliance on single sectors in any given area, noting the huge opportunity for innovation when diverse sectors intersect and ideas share between one industry/cluster to another. Places which fixate on a single cluster also lack resilience and agility. There is a risk in emphasising clusters that we create unhealthy competition between regions.
Through our work with place leaders across the UK (e.g. the Innovation Places Leadership Academy, the UK Innovation Districts Group, the Freeport Innovation Network), we are also well placed to provide practical support to those seeking to deliver innovation-led local growth.
Innovation & Local Growth Plans
We see an opportunity for the Industrial Strategy, complemented by robust Local Growth Plans, to promote nationwide collaboration between places and clusters which make up different parts of our innovation value chains. This will promote mutually beneficial flows of talent, investment and knowledge across all parts of the chain. We see this as an opportunity to apply a market-driven focus to cluster development, emphasising access to emerging markets and creating tangible business opportunities, as companies join clusters to grow their bottom line.
Capacity to deliver innovation-led local growth is unevenly distributed across combined and local authorities as they face multiple competing fiscal and other pressures. This requires new thinking and resourcing approaches to capacity development and new strategic thinking. Without building innovation capability, there is a danger that the gap between innovation rich and experienced regions, and those regions with untapped potential, will grow. Without broader coordination, Local Growth Plans risk unnecessary fragmentation, competition or duplication.
Investments in high-productivity sectors will deliver a weak return if the places in which they are based are not optimised. Local Growth Plans need to not only describe how places will deliver sectoral improvements in support of the national growth mission, but also place-based transformations in the physical, digital and civic fabric of the place to support a flourishing innovation economy.
We can help unlock innovation in local growth planning and delivery, strengthen regional digital capability and capacity, and align local plans into national activity and vice versa providing a consistent approach across the UK.
Digital & data leadership
We welcome the Green Paper’s focus on the role of data in supporting the Industrial Strategy, as well as the role of Government in removing the barriers to sharing data to improve business operations and decision making.
It is important that Government plays a leading role in reusing public sector data by adopting the principle of “collect once, use many times,” treating data as essential infrastructure. It should incentivise data sharing to unlock regional and sectoral potential while aligning policies with global best practices and market standards. Public sector data, including the proposed National Data Library, should be prioritised as a driver of innovation and growth.
We welcome the provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Bill – mandatory sharing, funding mechanisms, and enforcement—extend across sectors. A cross-sector Smart Data framework should promote secure, standardised sharing, enhancing productivity and innovation. Clear governance, pro-innovation regulation, and alignment with international frameworks, such as the Interoperable Europe Act, are essential.
Improving data literacy and capabilities within businesses will enhance their use of data across supply chains, foster collaboration, and strengthen competition in data-driven markets. These efforts will ensure the UK’s public and private sectors thrive in an increasingly data-driven economy.
It is also important to adopt a standardised approach across Government, industry, academia and Catapults. A decentralised approach to data sharing infrastructure is vital for unifying fragmented systems across transport, energy, and water, reducing costs and boosting productivity.
This will:
- Establish transparent governance
- Identify critical cross sector uses-cases and route maps
- Inform legislation, policy and investment in demonstrators
- Inform the development of a framework of future-proof components (technical and socio-technical) building on existing digital assets and legacy technology
- Share strategic insights to guide the market to implement this infrastructure effectively, fostering innovation and resilience across industries.
Innovation-friendly procurement
Thanks to technical advances we are seeing incredible innovations being unlocked in the UK by new suppliers from academic spinouts, small and medium sized businesses (including start-ups), scale-ups, venture capitalists, accelerators, corporate innovation teams and many others. These diverse suppliers are helping to achieve better, cheaper and quicker outcomes and create more value from the £400bn the public purse spend per annum on third party suppliers.
If just 5% of public sector contracts were brought to market in this way, it would transform £19bn of existing spend into innovation fuel annually. There is an opportunity to nurture this approach further and reform how the public sector shapes markets by not only effectively delivering public policy outcomes, but also by creating new businesses that could be exporting services across the world. To achieve this, we must go beyond Research and Development and use procurement to realise more value by scaling solutions.
- Being more open with the market on the challenges the public sector is facing;
- Applying effective procurement routes to market;
- Creating the right culture and environment for innovation in the public sector to thrive;
- Using experimentation to test, iterate and build evidence on where innovation can add value, and scouting the market for those hard-to-find companies that can solve key problems;
- Upskilling on the buyer and seller side on how public and private partners can co-create, work together and create a more entrepreneurial approach to solving public policy agencies.
Connected North 2024
Event finished: 23rd April 2024
We are hosting a Digital Twin Hub session on Day 1, 22 April at 2pm, titled ‘Digital twins driving innovation in the North – Explore innovative projects that look to catapult the North of the UK into a bright digital future’. Join Nury Moreira, Community Manager of Digital Twin Hub, and other speakers for an inspiring conversation.
UKREiiF 2024
Event finished: 23rd May 2024
This year, we are proud to host our own Pavilion, a place designed to showcase real innovation, and provide opportunities to connect with thought leaders, and UK and global peers.
To review our full Agenda of sessions and activities taking place over the three days and plan your visit, please head to the UKREiiF website > Programme tab > Download Programme or > Click on the Connected Places Catapult Pavilion dot to browse online.
Make sure to visit our Pavilion in Pavilion Square, we look forward to connecting with you in Leeds!
Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) Conference 2024
Event finished: 17th January 2024
We’re delighted to participate in the Open & Agile Smart Cities Conference. Make sure to visit our Connected Places Catapult stand on the show floor and to join the sessions our experts are participating in over the course of the two days.
Smart City Expo World Congress 2023
Event finished: 9th November 2023
Visit the UK Pavilion Powered by Connected Places Catapult in Hall P1, stand 61, to discover exciting technological innovation from partners from across the UK.
Sam Markey, our Ecosystem Director, Place Leadership, will co-host an insight-rich event on innovation-friendly procurement with pioneering place leaders from across the world, on the UK Pavilion on Tuesday, 7 November, from 14:00.
On Wednesday, 8 November, our Principal Place Development Leader, Catherine Hadfield, will Chair a session on the role of Innovation Districts in the digital future of cities and regions, from noon.
Smart City Expo World Congress
Event finished: 17th November 2022
There is a number of panels that we will be part of.
On Tuesday 15 November at 12.00, Andrew Cockburn, our Head of Global Business Growth will join the UK Smart Mobility Panel where he will give an overview of our work on accelerating innovation of mobility. Andrew will join another panel on that day, at 14:30 he will talk on the Cyber Security and Cyber Resilience for Secure Connected Place panel. During this session Andrew will share some insights on how we can use the existing cyber security model policy work the Catapult has created with the G20 Smart City alliance to promote improved policies globally, and to accelerate the take up in pilot cities.
Join us on Wednesday 16 November at 9:15am to hear more on Smarter Ports as the Driving Force of Regional Innovation, the panel we have created. This discussion panel will be examining the multi-modal element that ports play in the ecosystem, and the opportunity they present for driving a whole system’s approach. Hear from our partners and exciting speakers such as: Tom White, Ecosystem Director for Maritime and Ports at Connected Places Catapult
Nolan Gray, Director at Teesside
Chris Shirling-Rooke, Chief Executive Officer at Mersey Maritime
Don’t miss out this important event, book your ticket to meet with us and to hear more.
A data-led renaissance in city twinning
A data-led renaissance in city twinning
This article features in the first edition of the Connected Places Magazine
It’s a story that begins and ends with cities as the engines of national growth. According to the World Bank, more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. By halfway through this century, three out of four of us will live in cities.
Cities are not just our past, they’re also our future. But we don’t always recognise that.
We know, for example, that cities drive economic and social change thanks to their concentration of people, academic institutions, and access to new technologies and ideas. But traditionally when we think of bilateral innovation and R&D partnerships, we tend to think at the national level.
For instance, countries will agree to cooperate. Missions are held between capital cities, and perhaps a handful of smaller cities are included where possible. That centralised model is now changing. Governments and cities around the world are recognising that economies and place are closely intertwined, and you can’t grow an economy without strong local leadership.
This is why the Catapult has been supporting the governments of the UK and South Korea in breathing life back into the idea of city twinning. It’s doing so using new data models and insights into the unique personality of a city’s innovation economy. And rather like a dating app, it can help match cities anywhere in the world that have complementary governance systems, business climates, and innovation markets.
The UK and South Korea are highly developed, innovation-based economies. The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, and the third top destination when it comes to private technology investment. Similarly, South Korea is an urbanised, tech-enabled society with a highly skilled workforce. It was ranked by the Bloomberg Innovation Index in 2021 as the most innovative country in the world. This is nothing short of staggering for a former agricultural economy that emerged from civil war in the 1950s.
Both countries also have a strong policy focus on innovation-led growth that creates opportunities across and between regions. For the UK this speaks directly to the Government’s commitment to ensuring the innovation economy is playing its part in levelling up growth right across the country.
The adoption of smart and resilient technologies in cities is also a shared aim for Britain and South Korea. So too is creating new markets for smart city solutions, regeneration projects and urban testbeds. This is why the Catapult is fostering city-to-city relationships. It’s providing UK and South Korean companies new opportunities to collaborate and to remove barriers to market access for small businesses seeking to gain a foothold in their partner cities.
But the unique ingredient is the new intelligence this approach offers. It’s now possible to analyse which British and South Korean cities would twin best with each other.
This is based on a rigorous understanding of:
Because long before the post-war town twinning movement, cities had been trading, exchanging and learning from each other for millennia. Our global economy began with the networks that connect cities. In fact, many of our cities pre-date the nation states in which they are located.
London is certainly older than the UK, or even England. Athens and Rome speak for themselves, and on the Han River near present-day Seoul, a city was first recorded over 2,000 years ago.
Yet Sejong only emerged on the map as a new planned city in 2007.
So perhaps the renaissance of city twinning we’re seeing between the UK and South Korea is as new as it is old – an embrace of the digitally-driven global innovation economy on the one hand, and a rediscovery of a deeper history of urban collaboration on the other.
According to the World Bank, more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. By halfway through this century, three out of four of us will live in cities as the world population moves towards 10 billion.
The World Cities Summit
Event finished: 3rd August 2022
The World Cities Summit (WCS) is an international conference series on public governance and the sustainable development of cities. This is an opportunity for government leaders and industry experts to address liveable and sustainable city challenges, share integrated urban solutions and forge new partnerships.
Connected Places Catapult is pleased to become a strategic partner of the World Cities Summit which is being hosted by our partner the Centre for Liveable Cities.
Join us in person to hear from Nicola Yates OBE, our Chief Executive Officer who will give an overview of the global urban city sustainability landscape at the Tomorrow’s Sustainable Cities Today event. The discussion panel will be run by our partner Mastercard City Possible on Tuesday, 2 August, 14:00-15:00.
Also, Prof Greg Clark CBE FAcSS, Chair of Connected Places Catapult and 3Ci (Cities Commission for Climate Investment) will run the Sunday Mayor’s Forum and the Green Finance Track of the main Summit.
To book a meeting with us contact Elena Williams from our Global Team at elena.williams@cp.catapult.org.uk
Our New Magazine – Connected Places
Our New Magazine – Connected Places
Our New Magazine – Connected Places
Get the latest insights from innovators and thought leaders in cities and transport!
This first issue of Connected Places magazine is packed with ideas from the people shaping and connecting the places of tomorrow.
There’s an interview with IT industry veteran Dr. Alison Vincent on how ‘connected intelligence’ is shaping the places of tomorrow, and a look at the future of our maritime economy from the Catapult’s very own Tom White.
We’ve got innovation news, advice on applying academic innovation, and recommendations for places to visit, books to read and podcasts to listen to if you – like us – have an insatiable appetite for new ideas.
Discover the people and companies at the forefront of new ideas for our connected world.
Love this? Then you’ll also love the Connected Places Podcast!
