To realise the vision of the Golden Triangle promoted by Boris Johnson in April, the authors say journey times across the South East region need to be reduced dramatically.
They argue that it is currently as hard to work between Oxford and Cambridge as it is to work with Manchester, Amsterdam, or Paris. “Drawing lines between places on a map does not make them connected,” said David Cleevely, one of the authors. “We need to connect people and ideas and back this with infrastructure to match.”
Recent reports show that there are more people employed in tech in the South East than in California (http://goo.gl/ZnxWze). The distance from Cambridge or Oxford to the southern suburbs of London is the same as the distance from San Francisco to South San Jose at the end of Silicon Valley. To a foreign investor, the principal South East clusters – Cambridge, Oxford, London, Stevenage, Milton Keynes, the Thames Valley, Martlesham – are broadly one and the same place. But excessive travel times prevent the benefits of this being realised.
Bringing these places together could unlock significant innovation and growth. In the long run, the report says, this has to be done by investment in rail, with King's Cross becoming the mega hub of the South East, and Oxford and Cambridge within 30-40 minutes travelling time.
The report also highlights other kinds of infrastructure which could encourage the networking that is vital to innovation clusters – such as huge interactive video screens showing cafés and streets in other locations. Walking past such a screen, you see someone you had been meaning to have a chat with; you attract their attention and talk as if you had met in person.
The report also suggests that a new branding strategy for clusters in the UK is needed – one that can be owned by Manchester or Glasgow as much as by Cambridge or London. The authors point to the “Britain is GREAT” campaign as an example of how this could work.
The authors are calling for government to get together a broad range of individuals and organisations to plan how their recommendations could be turned into practical reality, not just for the South East but for the whole of the UK.
They note that Nesta, the Innovation Growth Lab, Innovate UK, the Connected Digital Economy Catapult and the Centre for Cities are already working on a similar agenda, and they argue that this work itself needs a hub – they suggest King’s Cross itself.
The report is available here: http://entrepreneurshippolicy.co.uk/how-to-make-the-most-of-uk-innovation/report.pdf
Recommendations of the report
The authors - two of whom (Dr Hermann Hauser and Dr David Cleevely) sit on the Cambridge Network Board - recommend that the government should convene a broad range of individuals and organisations to plan how to:
- Inspire initiatives and experiments that connect people and ideas in creative ways.
- Invest in infrastructure to improve connectivity to London King’s Cross as the mega-hub for the South East, and cut travel time between the corners of the Golden Triangle to well under an hour (see table).
- Develop an inclusive UK-wide branding strategy for clusters that allows excellence to grow and prosper, no matter where it resides, and empowers all participants equally.
(Image removed)
Image: Hermann Hauser (L) and David Cleevely at a Cambridge Network debate