Innovation districts play a vital role in driving economic growth, regenerating towns and cities, and convening regional partners and communities to tackle societal and environmental challenges. Districts bring together policy makers, businesses, universities, investors, and communities to foster collaboration, design places, create jobs, develop skills, improve systems, and support productivity. Despite a growing recognition of this, evidencing the impact of innovation districts remains a challenge for place leaders.
Measurement conversations too frequently start with “What data do we have?” instead of “What are we trying to achieve?”. This can lead to extensive lists of ‘indicators’ that are disconnected from the core purpose of an innovation district and the variety of audiences it serves.
To address this challenge, the UK Innovation Districts Group (UK IDG) has been exploring how data and impact can be better aligned across our network. At our 2026 Summit in June, expert advisory firm Metro Dynamics facilitated an interactive workshops with Members. The session guided participants through a structured logic framework: defining desired outcomes first, examining how priorities vary across different regional contexts, and evaluating metrics from key stakeholder perspectives.
Fiona Tuck, Director at Metro Dynamics, said, “We were delighted to be part of the UK IDG Summit 2026, where we facilitated a workshop on how innovation districts can use data. Innovation districts play an important role in many of our urban centres, with impacts extending beyond innovation and business growth to skills, talent, collaboration and the wider fabric of place. For place leaders, being able to understand and articulate these wider impacts is increasingly important, both in demonstrating value and in shaping future priorities and investment. The workshop was a valuable opportunity to bring together experiences from innovation districts across the UK and explore both what success looks like for an innovation district and how these impacts can be evidenced.”
Following the workshop, Metro Dynamics produced a report that detailed the approach taken and shared insights and learning from the discussions. The publication – “From data to decisions: how good data drives good outcomes”, featured below, sets out the practical toolkit used during the Summit so that district leaders can explore and adapt as appropriate, to run similar exercises at an innovation district level.
This work forms part of a wider set of ‘data and impact-focused’ research and knowledge share across the UK IDG network this year, culminating in the refresh of data dashboards for Member areas and the recent UK IDG report “The power of data for Innovation Districts“ prepared by Urban Foresight. The report, released in July 2026, examines the availability of localised data that can help demonstrate the value innovation districts create, and highlights headline impact data for case-building from across the UK.
If you would like to learn more about our network of innovation districts or the ways we work together to research, share best practice, and develop practical frameworks to support data collection and evidence impact, please email hello@ukinnovationdistricts.co.uk
From data to decisions: how good data drives good outcomes
UK innovation districts are key drivers of innovation and urban economic growth, but their impact is often difficult to evidence because of limited access to data and the challenge of showing causality. This UK Innovation Districts report prepared by Urban Foresight, and the data dashboard behind it, examines the availability of localised data that can help demonstrate the value innovation districts create.
The power of data for Innovation Districts
This national entrepreneurial skills study, focusing on 16-25-year-olds, was funded by Innovate UK and commissioned by UK Innovation District Group (UK IDG) and Connected Places Catapult.
The study was commissioned in response to a decline in the UK’s youth entrepreneurial activity in the last 3 recorded years and a desire to better understand how this impacts and interfaces with the innovation economy. Urban Foresight was appointed to lead this study on behalf of the UK IDG.
The research covers a review of the UK’s current entrepreneurial skills landscape. Areas covered by this research include:
- Understanding which factors contribute to comparatively low entrepreneurial activity and start up rates within this 16-25 age group, with a special emphasis on underrepresented groups.
- Assessing what provisions currently exist to support the development of entrepreneurial skills amongst young people, identifying gaps and creating opportunities for improvement.
- Understanding the role of Innovation Districts as hubs of innovation in overcoming regional and demographic variations when seeking to create more impactful and inclusive skills development initiatives for young people.
- Identifying entrepreneurial skills needed to support enterprises with high growth potential aligned to the sector strengths of Innovation Districts, and examining models of provision for these skills.
- The insights and findings of this research have guided the development of recommendations, and a youth entrepreneurial skills pilot development framework, that can be tailored and put into practice by Innovation Districts and regional place leaders.
UK Innovation Districts Group Entrepreneurial Skills Report
For summary slides of this skills report, click here
The landscape of innovation is changing. So too is the rate of growth in the innovation economy.
Over the last 15 years there has been a distinct shift away from more secluded, out-of-town innovation campuses towards new models that favour urban vibrancy, diversity, connectedness, and proximity. Over that same period, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in economic growth related to sectors typically classified as part of the innovation economy (Bio science alone is projected to become the world’s next trillion-dollar industry (McKinsey 2020)). More broadly, innovation is helping to fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is said to be stimulating change at a rate 10 times faster and at 300 times the scale than the First Industrial Revolution in Victorian times.
Clearly, innovation and specifically, Innovation Districts – where much of this activity is increasingly centred, have a key role to play in the local, regional and national economy.
The UK Innovations District Group (UK IDG) was created to develop a supportive peer network of places and practices that aim to drive productivity and prosperity through place-based innovation. The 12 Innovation Districts that make up the group have a wide range of different expertise, structures and priorities yet benefit hugely from working together in a collaborative and conducive way to share knowledge and understanding.
Innovation clusters are undoubtedly exciting and progressive places with a clear focus on prosperity and growth. But they also have fundamental questions to address about the nature of that growth and how inclusive it can be, and the role that place-based innovation must play in contributing to this. At a time of rising inequality, these locations are faced with a huge challenge and responsibility: inclusive economic growth.
The NLA’s recently launched report Innovation Districts: Designing Inclusive Places explores just that, presenting key recommendations that different stakeholders should consider when creating an inclusive innovation district. The report showcases over 50 projects that are supporting and having a transformational impact on the education, healthcare, technology and innovation sectors offering a practical framework for how we think about designing and managing innovative places more inclusively. It asks a fundamental question “what do we want Innovation Districts to be and to deliver, and how do we best enable this?”
The report examines this through the different place-specific lenses of vision and strategy setting, physical placemaking, management and stewardship as well as employment and skills.
At the launch, author Jack Sallabank (Future Places Studio) gave a summary of the report before the panel shared their reflections and answered questions for the 60 strong audience. Jonathan Burroughs (chair of the NLA Innovation Districts expert group) touched on the different roles that different sector leads need to play in this as well as the importance of the cultural dimension of innovation – a willingness to think outside the box and be brave. A different approach to risk taking, that feeds enterprise and entrepreneurialism.
The panel discussed how organisations are attracted to these sorts of innovation clusters to access R&D, to access an enterprise mix, and crucially to access talent. The development of different and diverse skills and employment pathways is a key theme in the report. As captured in the panel discussion “diversity is a prerequisite for innovation”.
This point was also a central tenor in the recent UK IDG report Opening The Innovation Economy: The Case For Inclusive Innovation In The UK . This report, which preceded “Designing Inclusive Places” examines the bigger economic case for innovation and the need for us to think more intentionally about inclusive innovation and the correlation between shared prosperity and improved productivity. It outlines how inclusive innovation practices can be embedded through the stages of design, delivery, diffusion. The report identifies ten levers that leaders in the private and public sectors can pull to make the process and outputs of innovation more inclusive as well as including case studies that highlight some of the successes, failures and challenges innovation districts face. There is a lot to be learnt from each other in order to create opportunities for people and communities across the UK.
The UK IDG’s next research project will dig deeper into how we measure the value of innovation districts. How do we capture the different types of value that is generated in these innovation clusters so we have a fuller, more holistic picture of Innovation districts that takes into account inclusive innovation priorities alongside traditional economic metrics? What are the best ways to frame success, gather data, and monitor progress? And how do innovation districts inform and align with wider city strategy and sustainability goals? By developing a metrics & measures framework the UK IDG hopes to address some of these questions and help shape districts’ progress towards inclusive innovation outcomes.
Connecting with other groups and individuals who are doing similar research will be a key part of informing the research. So if you’d like to find out more please get in touch via email or LinkedIn as per below.
Genuine collaboration and quality leadership are fundamental success criteria across all innovation districts. We need innovation districts to be places that break from the status quo; hyper connected places tuned into the diverse neighbourhoods in which they are part of in order to help generate new ideas and methods that can solve pressing problems. We need to be prioritising new urban models of innovation clusters that operate in sympathy with their cities and thrive off the dynamism and diversity of their urban mix and ecosystems.
Put simply, we all have a role to play in how we reinvent the model towards more equitable, inclusive and responsible innovation districts of which the UK IDG is proud to play a part.
Make sure to follow the UK IDG on LinkedIn for the latest updates or email hello@ukinnovationdistricts.com if you have any questions.
New research explores how places can help spread prosperity by making the innovation economy more inclusive.
In February 2022, the UK Government’s Levelling Up White Paper set out a mission to increase expenditure on public research and development outside the Greater South East by at least 40% by 2030. It also outlined plans for new Innovation Accelerators in Glasgow, the West Midlands, and Greater Manchester.
To understand how, as part of the levelling-up agenda, places right across the UK can deliver truly inclusive innovation, the UK Innovation Districts Group and Connected Places Catapult initiated a Research Commission on Inclusive Innovation. A team, led by Metro Dynamics and Professor Neil Lee, explored the dynamics of innovation in local economies through interviews with people leading and working in innovation districts across the UK. The conversations covered how districts are delivering inclusive innovation on the ground, from involving local communities in setting their strategies to creating broad-ranging employment and training opportunities.
From this research, the report:
- Identifies ten levers that leaders in the private and public sectors can pull to make the process and outputs of innovation more inclusive;
- Highlights a number of successful projects and programmes demonstrating elements of successful inclusive innovation up and down the country; and
- Provides recommendations for key delivery partners including innovation districts, national Government, and local governments.
Emma Frost, Chair of the UK Innovation Districts Group, said:
“Against a backdrop of environmental crisis, post-COVID uncertainty and a rising cost of living and inequality, it is more important than ever to widen the funnel of who participates in innovation economies in the UK. This is the only way that we will achieve the additionality and value generation that UK communities and economies need.”
“This research, jointly commissioned by the UK Innovation Districts Group and the Connected Places Catapult, has examined where places are starting to do just that. It is critical that we, as innovation district leaders and policymakers, understand the building blocks that create thriving, inclusive, and sustainable local innovation economies and how these can be delivered at scale.”
Sam Markey, Ecosystem Director for Place Leadership at Connected Places Catapult, said:
“Innovation does not happen in a vacuum; it happens in places and is shaped by people. Inclusive innovation is about making sure that the innovation economy creates opportunities for people and communities from all corners of the country – not just in London and the South East.
“We know that innovation currently represents just a fraction of the UK’s economic activity but it has a profound influence on increasing prosperity and future-proofing economic structures. For too many people the prospect of working in innovation is remote, and the benefits of new discoveries are disconnected from their own lives. We need a more inclusive innovation economy to activate the UK’s latent potential.”
Earlier this month UK IDG members enjoyed an incredible visit to Newcastle hosted by Newcastle University and the Helix. Highlights included:
- Learning about how Newcastle is supporting its innovation ecosystem and skills pipeline via the Urban Observatory, the National Innovation Centre for Data, the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing, and the CPI
– Hearing from Dejan Bojic about the opportunities that #5G presents for innovation districts and from the North of Tyne Combined Authority about how they are putting this into action
Visiting the newly opened Newcastle United Foundation and seeing the range of fitness, STEM, and community programmes on offer
Thank you to our hosts for an inspiring study visit!
