Local businesses across three priority sectors can now apply for funding designed to turn university research into commercial success, building on the region’s track record with the Innovation Accelerator.
Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have secured £50 million in new research and development funding, aimed squarely at helping local businesses in advanced manufacturing, life sciences and creative technology turn ideas into products that reach the market.
The money comes from the UK government’s £500 million Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, and it’s one of the biggest single investments the region has seen in this space for a while. Businesses working in any of the three priority clusters can now register their interest, whether that’s a scale-up chasing its next breakthrough or a research organisation looking to commercialise years of work.
How it’s structured
Rather than one big pot of money, the funding runs through three flagship programmes, each led by a different university. FORGE for Advanced Manufacturing, led by the University of Warwick, focuses on advanced manufacturing, think future mobility and the clean energy transition. The Clinical Trials Catalyst for Health and Life Sciences, run out of the University of Birmingham, is building regional strength in clinical trials and near-to-patient biomanufacturing. And the Creative Industries Scale-up Lab for Creative and Immersive Technologies, also led by Warwick, is targeting the fast-growing world of immersive and AI-enabled design.
To qualify, organisations need to be part of what’s called a “triple helix”, a working partnership between industry, academic researchers and the public sector. It’s a deliberate choice: the fund isn’t interested in isolated research for its own sake, but in projects that translate into real economic activity across the region.
Building on what already works
This isn’t the region’s first attempt at this kind of thing, and that’s part of why it’s landed with confidence rather than fanfare. The £43 million West Midlands Innovation Accelerator, which came before it, supported over 1,500 local businesses and pulled in more than “2 of private investment for every £1 of public money, backing companies like Global Nano Network, FuturEnergy and MICA Biosystems along the way.
Professor Sir Ian chapman, Chief Executive Officer of UKRI, put it simply: the fund exists to make sure world-class research gets into the hands of local organisations and businesses that can put it to work.
The launch was followed almost immediately by another milestone, Lord Vallance, the Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, opened the new laboratory for the Aston Institute for Membrane Excellence at Aston University. The lab brings chemistry and biology research together under one roof, which applications ranging from drug discovery to water purification.
A wider network behind it
The fund is being delivered by the West Midlands Growth company and Businesses Growth West Midlands, with backing from partners including Coventry University, Birmingham City University, the University of Wolverhampton, Jaguar Land Rover, the BCC, Cisco and Capgemini, among others. It’s a long list and this kind of funding only works if industry, universities and public bodies are genuinely pulling in the same direction.
For Birmingham, it’s another sign that the region’s research base is being treated less as an asset to be admired and more as one to be put to use.
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