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Manchester: Knowledge Capital
 

Manchester Science City

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” Bill Gates of Microsoft, 1981

Innovation is changing. It’s speeding up. In some fields the rate of innovation is so fast, none of us are much good at predicting the future accurately – but what we can do is ensure that the environment for innovation is right, so that our people and businesses can be leaders and successful change-makers.

Manchester is one of six “Science Cities” in the UK, a government designation that recognises a powerful local combination of research excellence and business strength.

M:KC’s Manchester Science City programme has focused on three main strands of activity:

Innovation Partnerships

Exploratory, cross-sector collaborations between academic and industry specialists, trade associations and support agencies, in key areas such as healthcare, the built environment and digital media.

Real World Science

Helping to unlock the public benefits of science and technology, enabling more people to take part in informed debate and decision-making.

Science Festival

The Innovation Ecosystem

A pioneering conceptual approach to city-level innovation policy, taking account of the many inter-dependent factors that make up the complex ‘total environment’ for innovation. This new approach has since informed local strategy and the national UK agenda. In Manchester we’re nurturing a total environment that takes account of:-

  • talent attraction
  • investment finance
  • physical infrastructure
  • policy support
  • networks and partnerships
  • creative and cultural buzz

Back in 2005 we set out our vision of a leading city with an active and supportive innovation ecosystem in the Manchester Science City prospectus.

Since then, Manchester has made some great leaps forward as a science city. This is not a story about an individual organisation – it’s a story about the spirit of partnership that exists in our great city. Click here to see more.