Inventing our future Collective action for a sustainable economy

What do we need to change?
The spatial response
Greater Cambridge sub-region
Napp Pharmaceuticals,
Cambridge Science Park
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Greater Cambridge sub-region
Global centre for learning, technology
and life sciences
Overview
The Greater Cambridge economic footprint covers parts of no fewer than
nine districts including Cambridge City, South Cambridgeshire, East
Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Fenland, St Edmundsbury, Forest Heath,
Uttlesford and East Hertfordshire. The sub-region provides 365,000 jobs
with an employment rate of 81 per cent. Over 43,000 people are
employed in an estimated 1,400 high-technology companies, and
Greater Cambridge attracted over 18 per cent of all UK venture
investment in 2007. The resident population has grown by 6 per cent
since 2000, considerably above the national rate of 2.5 per cent for the
same period. Success has brought with it the pressures of growth, notably
deteriorating housing affordability and congestion. There are also
warning signs that the constraints in Greater Cambridge are beginning to
erode competitiveness, with minor contraction of the cluster and
increased competition to the world-leading status of the University of
Cambridge. Despite this, Greater Cambridge remains a learning and
innovation centre of global repute.
Assets and opportunities
• the University of Cambridge, currently ranked fourth in the Shanghai
Jiao Tong ranking of global universities, and the leading research
university in the UK and Europe. University of Cambridge spin-outs have
attracted more venture capital investment than any other UK university
• world-class research institutes and science base including the
University of Cambridge, the Genome Campus at Hinxton, the
Laboratory of Molecular Biology adjacent to Addenbrooke’s Hospital,
the Babraham Institute and the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre
• globally significant information and communications technologies and
biotechnology clusters
• corporate and/or R&D functions of multi-national corporations such as
Schlumberger, Microsoft, Hitachi, Toshiba, Monsanto, with others
relocating to Cambridge such as Philips
• an EU top-four locality for total institutional investment into innovative
start-ups, number one in terms of investment per capita
• a strong presence of professional service, legal and consultancy
companies and networks (eg the Cambridge Network) enabling
business growth and knowledge exchange in the technopole
• specialist accommodation for knowledge-intensive and early-stage
ventures, including at least seven science parks or incubators
• a cohort of serial entrepreneurs, pools of management expertise, a
supply of high skills, with an ability to attract international mobile talent
• significant heritage, leisure and cultural assets that provide drivers for
the tourism sector
• a bloodstock cluster of international renown at Newmarket
• strong links to global markets and a history of international
collaborative programmes (eg Cambridge-MIT Institute,
Cambridge-Munich network links).