• Collaboration between six city regions in North of England could create location as attractive to tech business and entrepreneurs as San Francisco or Berlin

• Northern city regions should work at keeping hold of graduate talent, forging closer links with startups and planning for the arrival of driverless cars

7 June 2016 - The Northern Powerhouse cities and combined authority regions have the best chance of attracting investment and creating jobs if they define their own destiny rather than trying to emulate London, according to new research released today from Nesta, Accenture and Future Cities Catapult.

CITIE: The Northern Powerhouse Analysis is the latest instalment in a series of reports designed to help policymakers in cities create the best environment for innovative businesses to thrive and assess how city governments perform as advocates, regulators and customers.

According to the report, cities in the North should focus on their unique offer - top universities, quality of life and good business networks - whilst also adopting best practice from other similarly sized cities with successful entrepreneurial scenes such as Oslo, Tel Aviv and Boston.

CITIE: The Northern Powerhouse Analysis assesses the entrepreneurial ecosystem in six city and combined authority regions in the North of England: Greater Manchester Combined Authority Region, Hull City Region, Liverpool Combined Authority Region, North East Combined Authority Region (incorporating Newcastle and Sunderland), Sheffield City Region Combined Authority and West Yorkshire Combined Authority (incorporating Leeds and Bradford).

The report identifies a range of strong measures already undertaken by city governments in the North – including Liverpool’s support for small businesses entering the local government supply chain and Leeds’s commitment to open data. It also makes recommendations for how leaders in newly, or soon-to-be devolved metro governments can further boost innovation and attract entrepreneurs.

Crucially the research finds that greater collaboration between city regions and combined authorities could see a collective Northern Powerhouse region join the top tier of global destinations for tech business and entrepreneurism, competing with the capital. When performance across all assessed city regions were combined, the results rival top performers in the previous 2015 CITIE global analysis, alongside cities like San Francisco, Berlin and London.

Key recommendations from CITIE: The Northern Powerhouse Analysis include:

●   Clear regulatory roadblocks: review and repeal outmoded regulations and futureproof statute books for the arrival of emerging technologies such as driverless cars

●   Learn from startups: formalise links between the public sector and entrepreneurs so city officials can learn from and understand emerging and innovative businesses

●   Set up shop at the global marketplace: coordinate marketing and trade development strategy to tell investors around the world the North is open for business

●   Hold on to graduate talent: establish career pathways to encourage leavers from the North’s string of world-class universities to stay on after graduation

●   Get everything connected: create city-wide IoT and data networks - and get as many people online as possible by prioritising fibre broadband to homes and preparing for 5G

●   … and everyone on their bike: build better transport infrastructure, including cost-effective and health-promoting cycle-sharing schemes.

Eddie Copeland, Director of Government Innovation at Nesta, said: “Taken as a region, the cities that make up the Northern Powerhouse represent a large and growing economy worth £289 billion in gross value added (GVA). The devolution agenda will soon mean that local leaders have much more say over how they support sustainability, fairness and prosperity in their cities. This report serves as a timely resource to help inform their thinking. While the specific recommendations are directed to individual city regions, the report highlights the benefits that greater collaboration could bring in expanding the level of innovation, investment and sharing of best practice.”

Jen Hawes-Hewitt, who leads Accenture’s smart cities work in the UK, said: “Cities and their citizens are shaped by the forces of innovation and technology, said Jen Hawes-Hewitt, who leads Accenture’s smart cities work in the UK: “Cities that have succeeded over the centuries are those that changed and adapted as economies evolve. Vibrant startups are important not only for growth and jobs but also for a city government’s ability to crowd-source complex problem solving. I’m excited by the actionable insight in this report that can help Northern Cities take advantage of this innovation dividend.”

Scott Cain, Chief Business Office at Future Cities Catapult said: “From our work with cities around the world, we know real results need knowledge sharing, partnerships and the creation of ecosystems where business and people thrive. The framework in the CITIE project provides a springboard from which cities can do just that.  The powerful visualisations of urban data it offers can help unlock the information cities already collect and turn it in to useful tools to inform better decision making at scale. We hope that this new analysis of northern cities will guide city administrations towards fruitful conversations about their strengths and relative weaknesses as they experience increased devolution, allowing them to explore new opportunities for innovation.”

CITIE: The Northern Powerhouse Analysis and associated online resources will be launched on 7 June 2016. City governments can identify areas to improve on with the CITIE diagnostic tool, available at www.citie.org.

*ENDS*

Notes to editors

For media enquiries, please contact Matthew Hull at Nesta on 020 7498 2514 / [email protected]

About CITIE

CITIE is a collaboration between Nesta, Accenture and the Future Cities Catapult. It is a framework which aims to help city leaders around the world understand how they can create the best environment for entrepreneurship and innovation.

The tool identifies nine roles that a city can play to support innovation and entrepreneurship; from regulator and customer, to host and connector. Cities are then assessed to see how well they played these roles by measuring the extent to which they have implemented 36 different policy levers which collectively amount to best practice. Over 40 global cities have been analysed using the framework to date and you can view their diagnostics on the CITIE website; www.citie.org.

www.citie.org  I @citieinfo

About Nesta

Nesta is the UK's innovation foundation. We help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills. We are an independent charity and our work is enabled by an endowment from the National Lottery. Nesta is a registered charity in England and Wales 1144091 and Scotland SC042833.

www.nesta.org.uk | @nesta_uk

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions—underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 373,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com

Visit us at www.accenture.com | @accenture

About the Future Cities Catapult

The Future Cities Catapult is a global centre of excellence on urban innovation, a place where cities, businesses and universities develop together the solutions cities need for a strong economy, resilient environment and an improved quality of life. One of nine Catapult centres established by Innovate UK, it focuses on the challenge of urban integration: helping cities take a more joined-up approach to the way they plan and operate. Its central London Urban Innovation Centre and Cities Lab provide cutting-edge facilities for cross-disciplinary innovation.

www.futurecities.catapult.org.uk | @futurecitiescat