We talk a great deal in this country about “spreading opportunity.” It is an admirable aim but when it comes to building a globally competitive innovation economy, it is the wrong starting point.
The UK cannot afford to dilute its limited resources across dozens of regions and expect to rival the world’s best. If we are serious about accelerating innovation, we must concentrate investment where it will have the greatest impact: London, Oxford, Cambridge, and the North.
These four clusters already possess what every high-growth innovation economy needs: world-class universities, deep pools of talent, active investors, and a culture of collaboration between academia and business.
These regions are home to the breakthroughs in AI, advanced materials, energy transition technologies, and life sciences that will define the next century. But we risk holding them back by spreading investment too thinly, chasing the political optics of balance rather than the economic reality of scale….
