Clark puts clusters at heart of innovation strategy

The UK needs to get better at recognising and supporting research and innovation clusters, such as science parks, that foster research collaboration, the minister for science, universities and cities has said.

Speaking at the opening of the Innovate UK 2014 conference in London on 5 November, Greg Clark said: “Just as it has become possible to conduct our work remotely—we can all live in the top of mountains in Wales or Wyoming—what people are choosing to do is not isolate themselves but to come together, to cluster, to come to meetings like this and to bump into people.”

Clark added that as minister for cities, he wanted to help cities and universities contribute to local growth through collaboration, and that this would be reflected in the government’s Science and Innovation Strategy, due to be published in December. He said the barriers between government, business and universities were dissolving in a process led by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board).