‘Cambridge: where innovation makes history’.
✨ Powered by ground-breaking discovery and invention - from DNA, to therapeutics, to AI - the city has some of the strongest innovation brand currency in the world. With over 5,000 innovation-driven companies, 36 research parks, five hospitals trusts, and 2 universities, it’s home to more Nobel Prize winners and patent applications per capita than anywhere on the planet, and the UK’s fastest growing region!
But as anyone in the business of innovation knows, if you aren’t accelerating, you’re losing ground.
🚀 Today, I attended an update on 2022's ambitious 'Innovate Cambridge' strategy to accelerate the next decade of growth, and unlock barriers to success (Andy Neely Peter Freeman CBE, Daniel Zeichner, Mike Davey, Nik Johnson, Prof. Deborah Prentice).
The agenda unpacked a stream of transformational initiatives for the technology and science environment.
Equally thought-provoking was the launch of 'Cambridge Pledge'; despite headline successes, all regions have social and economic disparity and I was shocked to learn that in 2024 there remains a 14 year life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest in the city.
The Pledge (Sara Allen) visions closing the success circle, enabling entrepreneurs to turn profit into local community impact.
Also introduced was a new brand and marcomms playbook; congrats to Tabitha Goldstaub and team on gathering extensive stakeholder insight to feed the creative process - and to Michael Johnson for developing centralised, yet flexible messaging for universities, start-up talent, investors, regional policy-makers...
Successful ecosystems rely on wide ranging inclusion tactics and vibrant networks, and it was heartening to see commitments between Cambridge, London and Oxford, [the ‘Golden Triangle’], Manchester (Lou Cordwell OBE Shaun Grady Simon Thorpe) and the #NorthernPowerhouse, and international connectedness (Patrick Walsh Dogpatch Labs, Johannes Fruehauf BioLabs.
As someone who ‘arrived’ in Cambridge 15 years ago from Newcastle-Gateshead, (another region full of vibrant community, and technical and creative excellence), I truly believe the Silicon Fen 'talent, technology, culture, place' formula is unique: Cambridge has an extraordinary sense of provenance and possibility – a place where ideas and industries that we don’t even know about yet, can thrive.
But inclusive strategic innovation - connecting and sharing the challenges and rewards, leveraging talent wherever it is - will be the accelerator of more than regional, or even UK-wide innovation success; it will unlock the major global issues… decarbonisation, health and education access, and a sustainable, equitable future for everyone.
As a designer, innovator and strategist, I feel privileged to be a tiny cog in one of the world’s pioneering ecosystems at this exciting time!
Congrats Kathryn Chapman Robert Pollock Diarmuid O'Brien Michael Anstey Michelle Lamprecht and a united team!
