Innovation Greater Manchester

We want your Big Ideas to develop Greater Manchester as a world-class innovation economy

Innovation Greater Manchester is seeking big ideas from businesses and partners to deliver our vision and take our innovation ecosystem from good to great.

About Innovation Greater Manchester

Innovation Greater Manchester is a private-public partnership with a remit to drive forward progress and deliver Greater Manchester’s innovation vision. Innovation Greater Manchester is being led by a board of leading figures from industry, universities, and public sector organisations.

About the Innovation Accelerator pilot

Government has committed to work with Greater Manchester on a three-year Innovation Accelerator pilot. This is an important milestone in taking forward our vision.

Through the Innovation Accelerator, Innovation Greater Manchester will develop plans to boost innovation and attract new R&D investment in the city-region, building on local strengths and opportunities. Innovation Greater Manchester will receive dedicated support from the UK Government to address policy and regulatory barriers to growing the local innovation ecosystem, alongside having access to a share of a new £100m research fund.

Innovation Greater Manchester wants to bring together a wide range of business-led ideas to shape our Innovation Accelerator plan. Some of these will be supported to access a share of this initial available funding.

Strategic priorities

Greater Manchester has identified four frontier sectors where the city-region has a concentration of business and R&D capabilities and where there is significant potential for future growth:

Advanced Materials & Advanced Manufacturing
Digital & Creative
Health Innovation & Life Sciences
Net Zero

Further information about these frontier sectors is available within the Greater Manchester Local Industrial Strategy.

We welcome ideas that increase private sector-led R&D activity and investment aligned to these themes, including those that support multiple themes. We encourage ideas that focus on enabling activities such as connecting innovative firms to investment, talent, wider advice and knowledge, and networks to support innovation. We also encourage ideas to demonstrate how they support the Levelling Up agenda.

The majority of the activity should take place in Greater Manchester and we are open to ideas that work on a wider geography where it makes sense to do so.

We are open to a wide range of ideas that may involve revenue, capital, or a mix of both. The list below are examples of the kinds of projects that might fit, but this isn’t intended to be exhaustive.

Research commercialisation
Support to spin-outs and start-ups
Knowledge exchange and activities to support the adoption and diffusion of new technologies and approaches by businesses in the cluster
R&I networking activities
Cluster leadership and networks
Talent and skills development
Translational R&D carried out by either the research sector or businesses – including Collaborative Research and Development
Demonstration

Taking action

You are invited to share ideas by completing the available web form. These ideas will be regularly shared with the Innovation Greater Manchester Board, and will feed into how the Innovation Accelerator pilot is developed and delivered, as well as our wider plans for promoting innovation outside of the pilot process.

We will be particularly looking out for advanced ideas that align to local and national strategic priorities, offer value-for-money, have clear plans for sustainability, encourage collaboration across businesses and partner organisations, and can complete by 2025.

This is an ongoing and open invitation with the aim of shaping Innovation Greater Manchester’s approach over the long-term. However, aligned to the timescales set by Government, ideas received by 30 June 2022 will be reviewed and fed into the Innovation Accelerator pilot planning and project development process. Ideas that are received after the 30 June 2022 may not be considered for the Innovation Accelerator pilot funding, but they will be fed into the Innovation Greater Manchester board to inform our ongoing work to increase innovation activity in Greater Manchester

What is Innovation Greater Manchester?

What is the Innovation Accelerator?

In the Levelling Up White Paper published in early 2022, the UK Government announced £100m to pilot three new Innovation Accelerators, private-public-academic partnerships which aim to replicate similar models in Silicon Valley and Greater Boston. Innovation Greater Manchester has been invited to develop plans to boost innovation and attract new R&D investment in the city-region, building on local strengths and opportunities. Innovation Greater Manchester is receiving dedicated support from the UK Government to address policy and regulatory barriers to growing their local innovation ecosystem, alongside having access to the new £100m fund. Through Innovation Greater Manchester we are bringing together a wide range of business-led ideas and will support some of these to access a share of this initial available funding.

What ideas are we interested in?

We welcome ideas that increase private sector-led R&D activity and investment aligned to our four frontier sectors – Advanced Materials and Advanced Manufacturing, Digital and Creative, Health Innovation and Life Sciences, and Net Zero – including ideas that support multiple themes. We encourage ideas that focus on underpinning enabling activities such as connecting innovative firms to investment, talent, wider advice and knowledge, and networks to support innovation. We also encourage ideas to demonstrate how they support the Levelling Up agenda. We are open to a wide range of ideas that may involve revenue, capital, or a mix or both.

When will a decision be made?

This is an ongoing and open invitation with the aim of shaping Innovation Greater Manchester’s approach over the long-term. However, aligned to the timescales set by Government, the ideas received by 30 June 2022 will be reviewed and fed into the Innovation Accelerator pilot planning and project development process. This will be a multi-stage process, being co-designed between the GMCA and the Government. Organisations who submitted ideas prior to 30 June 2022 will be contacted regarding their submissions and the next steps of that process.

The Innovation Accelerator pilot is the first domino in our approach to delivering the broader goals of Innovation Greater Manchester. We are still keen to find out about other ideas for innovation projects across the city-region. Whilst ideas that are received after the 30 June 2022 may not be considered for the Innovation Accelerator pilot funding, they will be fed into the Innovation Greater Manchester board to inform our ongoing work to increase innovation activity in Greater Manchester, helping to shape future discussions with the Government regarding further funding, form networks of like-minded organisations and create links between possible collaboration partners where opportunities exist.