UK cities hear how to learn from Manchester example
The City’s Innovation message showcased by NESTA at national event
Manchester has been chosen by NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) as an exemplar of how other cities and towns can create an innovation system at grass roots level that can help business, public and third sectors grow and thrive.
Nearly 100 delegates, including representatives from the UK’s major cities, are hearing today (Thursday July 22) how Manchester is using a culture of innovation to tackle the challenges of growth and recovery in the face of spending cuts and other dramatic shifts in the local economy.
The event in London is titled Driving Innovation In Cities, will focus on how Manchester has been working in a unique partnership with NESTA to foster innovation and make the city better placed to tackle future challenges.
The lessons emerging from this work, and a selection of the 25 major innovation projects that are taking place, will also form the basis of a discussion paper that has been produced for the event. Entitled Driving Innovation In Cities – Learning From Greater Manchester, the 20 page report highlights three lessons that other UK cities can learn from Manchester.
The first lesson from Manchester cited how the right conditions for growth can only be created through a transparent and evidence-based analysis of a city’s strength and weaknesses.
The second examines how civic leadership needs to not only cut across administrative boundaries but also empower local businesses and non-governmental organisations to shape a culture of innovation.
The third is that cities can encourage innovative behaviour cost-effectively by connecting with, and stimulating, pockets of innovation that already exist within the local economy.
NESTA’s Driving Innovation In Cities paper also references a number of specific Manchester projects that have already demonstrated the value and importance of innovation on a city-region basis.
These include the Manchester Masters graduate talent retention scheme; The Innovation Manchester Boardroom – a vehicle for businesses to engage actively on issues that are important to them; MIMIT (Manchester: Integrating Medicine & Innovation Technology) which brings clinicians, technologists and research bodies together and FabLabs –helping ordinary people create new inventions via a state-of-the-art design lab.
Many of these projects are the direct result of Manchester: Knoweldge Capital (M: KC),work as Greater Manchester’s home-grown ‘innovation agency’ which since 2005 has helped stimulate and enable a culture of innovation across Greater Manchester.
M:KC’s Dr Cathy Garner, who will be speaking at the NESTA event today, said: “It’s fantastic that NESTA is highlighting Manchester as a leading example of innovative thinking, strategy and action. We have made great strides over the last five years and now many of the seeds that were sown then are beginning to bear fruit.
“Not every city has been as forward looking as Manchester, and in the light of current and future spending cuts, together with the rapid transformation of the economy on a global scale, we hope other UK conurbations can benefit from what we have learned so far.”
To read the report click here