According to UKRI’s own criteria obtained via a Freedom of Information request institutions were eligible if they met three thresholds:

While the intention behind the scheme is welcome, the execution appears to have disproportionately excluded high-performing institutions in the North of England, despite their strong track record on international research.

The detailed data and analysis underpinning this briefing can be found in the annex.

What the data shows

Criteria 1: International research funding (£5m+ ERC/MSCA)

Seven Northern universities met the £5m threshold: Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Lancaster, Sheffield, and Durham. None were selected.

Criteria 2: International staff (% vs. total)

Out of the Northern universities, Durham and Lancaster both cleared the 35% threshold (with both criteria 1 and 2 for funding, but being excluded). Manchester missed out by 0.3%, and otherwise would have qualified on this and Criteria 1 where it performed particularly strongly compared to many of those universities who were funded. The rules were varied for Cardiff, which only has 32.1% of international staff.

The metric also used penalises larger universities that may have more international staff overall. This is because it judges institutions on percentage, not total number.

Criteria 3: Global Talent visas (% of staff)

No public data is available, making this criterion difficult to scrutinise. However, since it’s based on a percentage of staff, it also disadvantages larger universities.

Durham would need ∼145 Global Talent visa holders to meet the 5% threshold; Manchester would need around ∼265; Bath for example would only need ∼81.

Why this undermines innovation in the North

The result is a Global Talent Fund that contains no universities from the North of England, despite multiple Northern institutions ranking ahead of those selected based on the objective data.

In our ‘Innovation for Impact‘ report, we called for targeted investment in Northern research hubs to drive national growth. By excluding institutions like Durham, Manchester, Lancaster, Newcastle and Sheffield, this scheme misses an opportunity to build on existing centres of excellence that contribute significantly to UK innovation.

We also warned against the dangers of “place-blind” policymaking which inadvertently rewards already advantaged institutions while overlooking those with equal or greater potential. The GTF decisions exemplify this risk in practice.

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has repeatedly welcomed the Government’s stated ambition to promote regional growth and narrow the geographic disparities that exist across the country. A funding decision that overlooks the North’s globally competitive research base sends the wrong message about the UK’s commitment to inclusive innovation.

Henri Murison, Chief Executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said:

“The principle behind the Global Talent Fund is absolutely right. Attracting world-class researchers to the UK is vital to the long-term competitiveness of our innovation ecosystem. But it’s deeply disappointing that not a single Northern university will benefit – especially when the selection criteria were both arbitrary and inconsistently applied.

“The North isn’t pleading, it’s simply asking not to be overlooked in favour of special treatment for nations like Wales, which, while important, are far smaller in scale. The North remains the UK’s only credible economic counterweight to London and the greater South East.

“If the government is serious about delivering growth across every part of the country, it cannot allow UKRI, the intermediary between government and our world-class research councils,  to stand in the way of that ambition.”

Annex: Comparative Analysis: Research-Intensive Northern Universities vs Global Talent Fund Recipients

This analysis compares research-intensive Northern Universities with 10 of the institutions awarded funding under the Global Talent Visa scheme.  John Innes Centre and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have been excluded due to a lack of available data.

Summary

Criteria 1 data demonstrates that outside of the Golden Triangle universities, in terms of competitive ERC funding, the performance of the Northern universities is broadly comparable with other universities selected for Global Talent Funding.

In terms of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions the Northern universities are also broadly comparable with the non-GT institutions receiving funding.

The ERC/MCSA criteria is not corrected for university size e.g. larger institutions will have larger ERC and MCSA returns.

Criteria 2 data demonstrates that only Durham and Lancaster meet the arbitrary cutoff of 35% of academics being international (notable Cardiff who are funded, also do not meet the cutoff).

It is worth noting that the sector average (total international academics as a proportion of the total) is 33% – using this as the cutoff would see two more Northern universities be eligible.

When sorted by total numbers of academics, the Northern universities are far more comparable to other funded institutions.

Criteria 3 has no publicly available data.

Conclusion

Under the criteria set out, research-intensive Northern universities are not well-placed to receive funding due to only 2 meeting the cut-offs for proportion of international academics and these 2 universities being less well-ranked in the ERC/MCSA funding (mostly due to scale, as this metric is not corrected for university size).

A small shift in the Criteria 2 metric to the sectoral average would see 2 additional Northern universities qualify, including Manchester, who rank strongly in ERC and MCSA data.

The impact of Criteria 3 data is unknown and may or may not add or detract from the case.

However, as many of the criteria are arbitrary, a more nuanced approach, with a sensible place-based approach ought to be possible.

Criteria 1

Successfully receiving and using competitive international funding, assessed by the amount of European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions funding received. The organisation must have reached a minimum of £5m of ERC/MSRC funding (combined) between May 2022-December 2024.

Data Sources: ERC Horizon Europe Dashboard for 2024 data, Gateway to Research for EU Guarantee Scheme funding for May 2022 to end of 2023.  To note: it was not possible to distinguish different schemes under the EU Guarantee, so all grants were included.

Universities who have been awarded funding and research-intensive Northern universities are compared and ranked according to the total value of ERC and EU Guarantee Scheme grants e.g. competitive ERC funding.  The Northern universities are broadly comparable to the non-Golden Triangle universities receiving the award.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions again demonstrate that Northern universities are broadly comparable in terms of the number of actions when compared to the non-Golden Triangle universities.

Criteria 2

Recruiting and retaining international researchers, assessed by the percentage of academic staff that are classed as international according to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA*). The organisation must have reached a minimum of 35% of academic staff classed as international, in the academic year 2023/24.

Data Source: HESA data on nationality of academic staff (either UK, EU, or non-EU) for 2023/24.  Institutions with under 500 academics staff have been removed.

Only 2 Northern universities are above the 35% cut-off in the criteria for minimal proportion of academic staff that are international.  It should be noted that University of Cardiff, also do not qualify, despite being funded, under these criteria.  Sectoral average is 33% (e.g. total number of international academics as a proportion of total academics in the dataset).

There are 60 more data points to this table.

When the data is ordered by total number of international academics, however, the picture is somewhat different, with the Northern universities being broadly comparable to non-Golden Triangle universities:

Criteria 3

Use of the Global Talent visa, which is the UK’s primary visa for researchers and specialists, assessed by the percentage of UKRI-endorsed Global Talent visa holders compared to total academic staff numbers according to HESA*. The organisations must have had a minimum of 5% of UKRI-endorsed Global Talent visa holders. GTV endorsement data used is from FY 2019/20 – FY 2024/25.

No information is available on this criteria in the public domain.

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Backed by new economic modelling, it shows that targeted public and private R&D investment into the North’s most promising sectors and clusters would help close the productivity gap with the South and unlock up to £206 billion in additional economic output over the next decade.

The proposals form the centrepiece of Innovation For Impact, a major new report published today by NPP in collaboration with Durham University Business School in the House of Commons. The report provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the North’s innovation ecosystem, mapping cluster strengths across 71 subsectors and evaluating each region’s performance on skills, technology, infrastructure and absorptive capacity.

The report follows the Spending Review announcement earlier this month of limited devolved funding local leaders as part of the wider £22.5bn a year in R&D funding by 2029/30 available through national institutions which could allow for the gap between North and South as the last government to be closed. At the heart of the proposal is a fundamental rebalancing of the UK’s innovation economy to mirror how government has long backed the ‘Golden Triangle’ and doing the same for regions with the capacity to scale innovation and commercialise it as well as up productivity of the wider stock of businesses.

Key findings include:

• R&D spending per capita in the North East is less than half the England average and just a third of that in the East of England.

• Sectors such as clean energy, health, digital and advanced manufacturing are clustered in the North but underperforming in productivity due to lack of support for adoption and scale.
• A pan-Northern innovation strategy focused on diffusion, infrastructure and skills could add £72–£206 billion in GVA over 10 years, even after subtracting business-as-usual growth.

Policy Recommendations

NPP’s overall recommendation is that government innovation funding can deliver productivity growth across the whole Northern economy, particularly the emerging and established clusters in city regions. This means focusing not just on firms producing innovation, but also on increasing the ability of businesses across the economy to adopt and absorb it-especially in areas where growth can be supercharged by wider investment in skills and connectivity through projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail.

The report makes five specific recommendations:

1. Business rates on lab space, particularly to support start-ups and scale-ups, should be reduced in the review of this tax
2. The award of £30 million each in the Spending Review to build on the Greater Manchester innovation accelerator and extend to South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region and North East is welcome. However, across these part devolved funds we need greater levels of ambition, and a total value of £3bn a year across the North to include translational research and diffusion.
3. The Local Growth Fund, which replaces the Shared Prosperity Fund, is to be targeted at the North and Midlands and will help correct the decline in funding since we left the European Union for local adoption by businesses of innovations (specifically SMEs). We strongly support backing regions with agglomeration which in the case of the North includes all those with and awaiting devolution because as demonstrated by the NPIER the sum of the North is greater than its individual parts.
4. Support the catapults as pan-Northern as well as national institutions, to align their funding with the work they would do through innovation deals for northern SMEs and wider place specific activity.
5. Build on the Made Smarter programme to design a series of pan Northern programmes focused on adoption and diffusion explicitly.

Jessica Bowles, Vice Chair of NPP and Director of Strategy at Bruntwood, said: “This report shows what those of us working in northern cities have long recognised: our economy is rich in innovation potential – from healthtech and clean energy to advanced manufacturing and digital. The foundations are already in place, but what’s been missing is a strategic and long-term commitment from government to help these clusters scale and thrive.

“Unlocking that potential means backing the North not only with R&D funding but also with investment in infrastructure and skills that support diffusion and adoption. We know that innovation doesn’t happen in isolation – it’s embedded in our places, our businesses and our universities. Devolved, place-based investment and greater control for local leaders are essential if we want to turn that embedded strength into meaningful economic growth.

“Our report shows the North has the assets to deliver, but it needs the tools to do the job.”

Professor Kieran Fernandes, Executive Dean of Durham University Business School, said:
“This report is a critical step in reshaping the UK’s approach to innovation and productivity. The findings show that targeted investment in the North could unlock both regional and national growth, addressing the persistent dilemma of regional versus national priorities. The economic evidence is clear: rebalancing innovation spending is not just a question of fairness, but a national economic imperative.”

Tom Bridges, UK Government and Innovation Leader at Arup, said:
“As an employee-owned firm of more than 18,000 members worldwide – including teams across eight offices in the North of England – Arup is proud to be a major investor in innovation and R&D. We do this through deep partnerships with universities, clients, industry bodies, and a growing network of start-ups and scale-ups.”

“The North of England is uniquely positioned to help the UK realise its ambition of becoming a global science and innovation superpower. With world-class universities, R&D-intensive businesses, thriving start-up ecosystems, established innovation districts, and the momentum of Freeports and Investment Zones, the region has all the ingredients for success.

“To unlock this potential, we need greater R&D investment in the North, the expansion of Innovation Accelerators, and targeted support from government and Mayoral Combined Authorities — to back innovators and build the labs and facilities they need to grow.”

See full report here:

View the report’s data in more detail through the interactive charts below or in full screen here following this link: https://public.flourish.studio/story/3154346/

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By Professor Charlie Jeffery, Vice Chancellor and President of the University of York

Another report on under-investment in the north was published last week, this time from IPPR North, just in time for the 2023 Convention of the North, held in Manchester on 25 January.

The IPPR report had a nifty soundbite: if the North were a country, it would, with Greece, be propping up the OECD league table on economic investment.

It followed on from others focused more specifically on R&D investment published by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Nesta, and Transport for the North. The message in all these reports is the same: economic imbalance between north and south will continue as long as there is an investment imbalance.

The golden octagon

This was a conversation the N8 Research Partnership picked up at the Convention of the North, working with the Northern Powerhouse Partnership. The N8 consists of eight universities across the north focused on mobilising their top quality research for economic innovation. It is the north’s “Golden Octagon”, just as vital for the UK economy as the “Golden Triangle” in the south.

So why are universities like those in N8 so important for the economy? We discover new knowledge through our research, and steer that knowledge partway, and sometimes all the way, into economic applications – products and services based on our ideas and technologies. We educate students in that cutting edge knowledge so they are equipped to use it, and drive on its application when they enter the labour market. And we convene, connect and attract: bringing together people and organisations; anchoring relationships between public and private sectors in the places we are based; and clustering economic activity around the innovations that emerge from research and the talents of our graduates.

When that works well you see, around our universities, a strong start-up culture connecting to and enriching the supply chains of existing businesses. Venture funding to support that start-up culture and scale up new business. Judicious public funding, national or local, to help attract, develop and retain businesses and talent. Inward investment as others from within and beyond the UK are attracted to a research and talent-led ecosystem.

In other words, you wouldn’t see these cluster effects without the research and the graduate talents that come from our universities.

Two way clusters

The question is: can this organic process be steered, nurtured, or accelerated more purposefully? I think it can – and increasingly, I detect, so does the government in Westminster.

For example, the York and North Yorkshire Devolution Deal has a unique element: a commitment to bring national and local partners together to further develop the bioeconomy cluster around the University of York – the BioYorkshire programme – by exploring how to capture public and private investment and to put it to work in a shared public/private investment vehicle.

One commentator called this a prototype for the devolution of R&D policy. Shouldn’t this be a core part of the devolved portfolio of mayors and combined authorities in the north, part of their levers for attracting investment and driving growth?

Additionally, the possibility for greater devolution echoes some of the thinking of the Science Minister, George Freeman. He has a list of 30 innovation-led clusters, fed by universities across the UK, with several in the north, including BioYorkshire, that he would like to see grow. He has also set out a vision of ‘cluster development corporations’.

These would be different from conventional development corporations, which focus on regenerating a former industrial site for new purposes. Clusters are not sites, but systems, distributed across different locations.

What Freeman is signalling is the ambition to bring together foundational public funding, national and local, to help anchor long term private sector commitment – such as the patient capital in UK pension funds which Solvency II reform offers an opportunity to leverage – so that it then draws in complementary investment: venture funding to incubate businesses; developer funding to give them somewhere to go when they scale up; and various locational sweeteners to get other businesses, within and beyond the UK, to relocate to the cluster.

This is a different way of thinking about investment – not just into a university, or a promising start-up, or an inward investment opportunity – but into the development of the cluster as a whole.

It is about thinking strategically, moving away from fragmented to more concerted decision-making. It is about moving away from that begging bowl and scattergun culture of government funding competitions recently criticised by Andy Street – something we heard about repeatedly at the Convention for the North.

So here’s a challenge for us in the north. Let’s make the argument for a devolved approach to R&D. Let’s build those cluster development corporations, let’s leverage the private sector into co-investment, let’s build a strategic approach to R&D investment – and begin to close that north-south investment gap.

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Two Northern schemes have been selected as forerunners in a carbon capture and storage cluster programme by the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) this morning, as the Prime Minister sets out the government’s net zero strategy ahead of COP26 in just a few weeks.

HyNet in the North West and the East Coast Cluster, a collaboration between Zero Carbon Humber, Net Zero Teesside and Northern Endurance Partnership, have both been named as “Track-1” clusters in a written statement from Energy Minister Rt Hon Greg Hands MP, putting them on course for deployment by the mid-2020s.

He said: “Deploying CCUS will be a significant undertaking, these are new major infrastructure projects for a new sector of the economy and carry with them significant risks to deliver by the mid-2020s. Government will continue to play a role in providing long-term certainty to these projects to manage these risks and bring forward the UK’s first CCUS clusters.

“We remain committed to helping all industrial clusters to decarbonise as we work to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and we are clear that CCUS will continue to play a key role in this process.

“Consequently, the government continues to be committed to Track Two enabling 10Mtpa capacity operational by 2030. This puts these places – Teesside, the Humber, Merseyside, North Wales and the North East of Scotland – among the potential early SuperPlaces which will be transformed over the next decade.”

Carbon capture and storage is a pioneering new technology which stops carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and is a crucial tool in the path to net zero.

The East Coast Cluster is made up of both Zero Carbon Humber and Net Zero Teesside, supported by the Northern Endurance Partnership – a collaboration between bp, Eni, Equinor, National Grid, Shell and Total, with bp leading as operator.

The Humber and Teesside industrial clusters make up 50% of the UK’s industrial emissions, so decarbonising these regions will have the biggest impact on the UK reaching net zero.

Drax, one of our member organisations, is ready to invest more than £2bn in two BECCS units at Drax Power Station, with the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.

BECCS at Drax can permanently remove at least eight million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, whilst supporting the creation of a new global industry in the UK, delivering tens of thousands of jobs in a new green economy.

HyNet hopes to to supply clean hydrogen and store carbon dioxide, helping businesses across the region cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce costs, and launch green products.

Project leaders estimate HyNet would also catalyse job growth across the North West and North Wales, with the potential to deliver a £17bn economic impact locally, protecting more than 340,000 manufacturing jobs in the region, and helping to create 6,000 low carbon roles.

NPP director Henri Murison said: “This could be a pivotal moment for the North taking the lead in a green energy revolution and is testament to the leadership of Metro Mayors Steve Rotheram and Ben Houchen, as well as private sector expertise and investment from those such as Sembcorp, Drax and ENI. 

“Now it’s time for clusters on both sides of the Pennines to collaborate on pioneering this technology further, as well as supporting those in Scotland to benefit from our early learnings in their efforts. The bulk of the industrial demand for carbon capture and storage is here, allowing us to protect traditional industries while creating new high skilled jobs and exportable know how. 

“We need to tackle global net zero challenges here in the UK rather than simply exporting emissions to other countries.  The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change Greg Hands MP and the government as a whole have made the right decision from both an economic and an environmental perspective.”

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27.07.21

For a long time, I’ve been banging the drum for the North to take the lead in the UK’s fourth industrial revolution, first as CEO of Siemens UK and now as vice-chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.

Embracing innovation and levelling up R&D investment would raise productivity across the whole of the North of England. It would create thousands of well-paid jobs in the industries of the future, unlock billions in growth and help us tackle some of the decade’s most pressing challenges – not least climate change.

Last week business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng came to Yorkshire to launch the government’s Innovation Strategy with a new plan to rebalance R&D investment across the UK.

After years of business leaders making the case for an innovation-led plan for growth, it finally sounds as if they’ve been listening. The strategy rightly recognises manufacturing and digital technology for the significant role they play in promoting innovation, productivity and prosperity.

Making the speech at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), the business secretary was able to see for himself what has been achieved in the past 20 years by businesses, government and our world-class universities working together to drive forward change.

In 2017, I led a government-commissioned review into industrial digitalisation with the aim of boosting growth across the manufacturing sector. We could increase exports, create 175,000 highly skilled jobs and unlock £455bn over the next decade if we invested in a national digital ecosystem and upskilled our workforce.

As part of the plan, we set up the Made Smarter programme, an initiative designed to help manufacturing businesses prosper through digital tools. After initial success in the North West, we’re now extending the programme to Yorkshire and the North East and in last week’s announcement, the government promised to work with us to scale up the programme further – a commitment I really hope they follow through on.

It’s a step in the right direction, one that could see us create thousands more skilled, productive jobs such as those being created through Nissan’s £1billion electric vehicle investment at its plant in Sunderland.

We also saw significant backing for advanced materials and manufacturing. The Advanced Machinery & Productivity Institute, based in Rochdale, was awarded £22.6 million to foster innovation for the UK’s advanced machinery manufacturers – a huge investment in R&D for the M62 corridor cluster between Manchester and Leeds.

We now have the beginnings of an innovation supercluster here in the North of England. The AMRC in Yorkshire, the Royce Institute in Manchester, the CPI Catapult in the North East – these places are all starting to act as a genuine counterweight to the pull of the South East’s ‘Golden Triangle’. After all, it is here in the North that we have the history, the expertise and the tools to lead a fourth industrial revolution – with a flourishing green economy at its heart.

While it was promising to see the report identify the potential opportunities from Sustainable Energy and Environment Tech, we need more ambition on hydrogen technologies and the carbon capture and storage initiatives being led by HyNet in the North West and Drax in the Humber.  We need this greater ambition to decarbonise energy generation, industry and transport, as well as to ensure we build world-beating industrial clusters across the North that create fantastic well-paid jobs.

Moreover, without a workforce equipped with the right skills to develop these industries, we don’t stand a chance of decarbonising the economy. We need to create many more apprenticeships and support employers to reskill our current workers in order to maximise the economic potential of our path to net zero.

Now the Innovation Strategy has laid out our core priorities, we need the ambition and the funding to match. As we recalibrate post-COVID and post-Brexit, this could prove a turning point in transforming the Northern Powerhouse into an engine for innovation, prosperity and growth for the whole of the UK.

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By Dr Kath Mackay, Director of Life Sciences for Bruntwood SciTech, the UK’s leading property specialist dedicated to the growth of the science and technology sector.

The North of England’s life sciences sector is one of the key engines driving not just the Northern Powerhouse but the UK’s reputation as a global science superpower.

With the industry sitting at the heart of the Government’s aspirations for a global Britain and the sector’s growth defying recent economic challenges, the opportunity to create value through new investment into its Northern businesses and infrastructure has rarely been greater.

Home to a fifth of the country’s life sciences workforce and generating £13.6bn of economic value every year – a third of the sector’s total output in the UK – the North is a supercluster of innovation districts creating high value jobs, exports and pioneering breakthroughs.

A rich ecosystem of businesses from across the life sciences spectrum, ranging from global market-leading businesses to promising start-ups, call the region home. The North boasts 19% of the UK’s biopharmaceutical workforce, 22% of its medtech industry and a third of its digital health talent-base.

Complex medicines manufacturing is a key sub-sector that thrives in the region. AstraZeneca’s huge facility at Macclesfield is one of the largest in Europe and it alone generates 1% of the UK’s entire GDP every year.

Fujifilm Diosynth in Teesside is another world class asset and now at the forefront of the global fight against COVID as the source of production of 60m doses of Novavax’s vaccine.

Diagnostics is a core strength, with global industry leader Qiagen placing its global centre of excellence for precision medicine in Manchester and the Medicines Discovery Catapult at Alderley Park, Cheshire, is at the forefront of the UK’s drug discovery sector.

Leading infectious disease research is conducted by institutions such as the Infection Innovation Consortium – iiCON – led by Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine alongside government, the NHS, Unliver, Index Therapeutics and Evotec.

The North also boasts large scale genomics capabilities, through institutes such as The University of Liverpool MRC/NERC Centre, and in Newcastle which hosts the largest clinical laboratory in Europe, and leading SMEs such as YourGene Health and QuantuMDx.

The foundations underpinning these commercial success stories are a cluster of world leading scientific and research-intensive universities based in the North’s cities, each feeding a talent pool that’s drawn to the region for its quality of life and lower cost of living.

These are further supported by a collection of key national scientific institutions, like Darlington’s Centre for Process Innovation and National Horizons Centre act as magnets for new investment, innovation and enterprise.

Meanwhile, the North’s devolved politics, with city region-level responsibilities for healthcare in places such as Greater Manchester, can help facilitate innovative and large-scale clinical and policy trials.

Regular collaboration between the North’s bedrock of academic and institutional excellence and the wider public and private sectors seeks to leverage the region’s collective power.

This includes bodies such as the Northern Health Science Alliance, which brings together 10 universities and NHS trusts along with four Academic Health Science Networks to unlock the huge potential of the North’s life sciences assets.

Strong links have also been forged with some of the UK’s other scientific hotspots, including the so-called ‘Golden Triangle’ of Cambridge, London and Oxford.

The two areas are closely entwined by commercial relationships, with many firms in the North providing specialist services to customers in the South East and vice versa, and clinical relationships, with the North boasting large and diverse patient populations, and world leading clinical research infrastructure.

Northern businesses are at the vanguard of life sciences and we have the raw ingredients here required to accelerate the creation of new high-value jobs and economic growth. Several of its cities and regions are singled out as being among the UK’s self-sustaining clusters of excellence in the Government’s recently published Life Sciences Vision.

Through further collaboration within the region and beyond, and new investment in the infrastructure needed for the region’s life sciences ecosystem to thrive, we can ensure the North continues to build on its successes and its critical contribution to the UK’s status as a global superpower.

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The Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) and UK2070 Commission are together calling for Metro Mayors to be given a greater say in leading the UK’s recovery from Covid, including of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the North.

Ahead of the Spending Review, NPP director Henri Murison and chair of the UK2070 Commission Lord Bob Kerslake will call for clarity on the plan for levelling up, alongside targeted investment in industries that increase productivity.

They will tell the BEIS select committee on Tuesday 24 November that the recovery must focus on devolving more powers to locally-elected leaders and allowing them to upskill the workforce in key industries of the future, including advanced manufacturing, digital and green energies.

These sectors could hold the key to solving the UK’s productivity crisis that lies at the root of the North-South divide, and wider regional inequalities across England.

While the Prime Minster has maintained that levelling up remains a top priority, Lord Kerslake says that there is still no sign of a plan and the government must appoint a dedicated Cabinet member and committee to ensure they deliver on election promises.

In October, the UK2070 Commission found that COVID-19 has exacerbated the UK’s economic dependency on London and the wider South East, calling for a £375bn 25-year New Deal strategy for a ‘just recovery’ to offset:

• The £4bn per year gap in research and development investment, through creating at least four global centres of science and technology outside the UK’s ‘golden triangle’.
• The £20bn per year cost of poor local connectivity, through major investment in transit systems in all major towns – and about 1,000 miles of new, upgraded and electrified main railway lines and services to more remote communities.

Last month, the UK2070 Commission set up a Teesside Taskforce to support the creation of better-quality, skilled job opportunities in the North East, through investment in freeports, steel, hydrogen and the wider net-zero agenda.

Mr Murison will be speaking at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), a world-leading research and innovation institution with more than 120 industrial partners. 

The AMRC is part of the University of Sheffield and it is also one of the national High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres – a world-leading hub for manufacturing companies, academia and government to drive improvements across multiple industries, whether aerospace, energy, construction or rail.

The AMRC Training Centre in Rotherham provides apprenticeship training to students aged 16 and over through partnerships with both SMEs and global brands, including Boeing, Rolls Royce and McLaren.

Mr Murison will highlight the role that companies like Sheffield Forgemasters can play in developing world-leading small modular reactors (SMR) technologies, with the potential to form a vital role in decarbonising the UK’s energy strategy and closing the power deficit. 

In its recent 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the government announced £215 million funding for the UK SMR consortium led by Rolls-Royce. The consortium comprises nine companies and research organisations, including the Nuclear AMRC – the AMRC’s sister centre, also part of the University of Sheffield and the HVM Catapult.

The consortium aims to have its first power station in operation in the early 2030s, with the development programme creating around 6,000 jobs by 2025. Up to 80 per cent by value of the power station components will be made in factories in the North of England and Midlands.

Sheffield Forgemasters received funding from the government in 2019 to build a large-scale BOST five-axis vertical turning lathe and a BOST RAM boring machine, the first of their kind in the UK, which combined with the company’s depth of manufacturing skill for civil nuclear projects, delivers a significant technological advantage in this market.  

SMRs are potentially faster to manufacture, safer and easier to decommission than large nuclear power plants and, by keeping the supply chain here in the UK, will create more skilled green jobs in the economic recovery.

Lord Bob Kerslake said:

“While we’ve seen plenty of warm words about levelling up, we still need a plan for devolution of further fiscal powers.

“Central and regional government both have a part to play in delivering this agenda. We need a dedicated cabinet member and committee, working alongside Metro Mayors across  the Western Gateway, Midlands Engine and Northern Powerhouse, to build a comprehensive plan for economic rebalancing. 

“The UK is one of the most centralised, imbalanced developed countries in the world and this has a serious detrimental impact our ability to drive economic growth. Recovery post-COVID will only take place once we realise that.”

Henri Murison said:

“Unlocking the North’s true economic potential through accelerating decarbonisation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not only crucial to closing the North-South divide, it is essential to recovery across the whole of the UK.

“The North’s vast economic assets are still hugely underutilised but through sustained investment in sectors such as off-shore wind, hydrogen and SMRs, alongside targeted, locally-led skills programmes, we can build back better in some of the areas worst-hit economically by COVID.

“We need to invest in both infrastructure and people to deliver this vision, upskilling and reskilling the workforce in highly-productive industries and sustainable energies that drive economic growth across the whole of the country.”

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