Local heroes

While Westminster looks inwards, Manchester goes global

Last time in Research Fortnight, Luke Georghiou, vice-president for research and innovation at the University of Manchester, gave us a glimpse of what a properly federal United Kingdom might look like.

His article Cottonopolis to Graphene City painted an image of a region that is open to the world, as it was in the heyday of the industrial revolution. A region with world-class institutions working to solve problems with both a local and a global focus, and with researchers, inventors and innovators playing a catalytic role. Graphene City isn’t perfect, but at least it’s real and not the mirage that is London’s Tech City.