The West Midlands: The HUMANiCITY, Making Innovation Work in the Most Human of Places
Standing united, they are the West Midlands: one of Europe’s most exciting metropoles to live, work and play, spilt across the three cities of Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, and four surrounding towns. A place called home to 2.9 million people. They have a rich history that connects them all together. Once the worlds workshop for the automotive industry, innovation shaped their city-region to become an industrial powerhouse.
Today, innovation is once again driving the transformation of their city-region’s economy, their people, and our planet, through globally significant innovation clusters in Healthtech, Cleantech, and Digital Creativity. This transformation is driven by 8 universities and 11 science parks in one of the UK’s most exciting places for innovation talent, with 185,000 students from across the world.
Innovation also helps to address the city-region’s social challenges and enable just, inclusive economic opportunities to over 100,000 business and broaden prosperity for their citizens living in one of the youngest and most diverse populations in Europe.
To deliver their ambitions, they collaborate as policy makers, entrepreneurs, established businesses, investors, academics, and local communities, guided by the leadership of a formal Innovation Board. They call their approach ‘HUMANiCITY’ - Making Innovation Work in the Most Human of Places.
Some of the most relevant projects include:
The West Midlands Innovation Accelerator
Backed by a trailblazing investment from UK Government to the tune of £33 million, the West Midlands Innovation Accelerator Comprises of five flagship project interventions exploiting their cluster excellence across health and low carbon related initiatives.
- Biochar CleanTech Accelerator
This project is delivered by Aston University and focusses on the commercial success of a regional cluster of 28 businesses, enabling it to design and build equipment able to produce low carbon materials and create new products for growing global marketplaces. The project has levered a £1.8 million knowledge transfer and applied research project building on regional engineering excellence linked to an internationally recognized centre of expertise in applied science and technology and has generated £6.6 million co-investment to provide companies with critical support with equipment design and optimization, materials analysis, plus carbon lifecycle and environmental impact assessments. Commercial impact includes £27 million core equipment exports to the EU and USA in initial deployments and £261 million in expected orders.
- Clean Futures
Delivered from specialist hubs in Dudley and Coventry, this project supports the development and diversification of transport manufacturing supply chains in the West Midlands, enabling the transition from fossil-fuelled to clean-tech solutions. Led by the Connected Places Catapult, to date the project has supported 20 businesses to test and trial their innovations with partners Coventry University and the Black Country Innovative Manufacturing Organisation, in doing so creating 38 new jobs. £1.3 million has been raised for businesses in private investment with a further £26.75 million in a committed pipeline. Clean Futures provides a foundation for sustainability through its Clean Futures Academy, bringing together the West Midlands innovation community to support longer-term sustainability and social benefit.
- West Midlands Health Tech Accelerator
This £16 million project, led by the University of Birmingham, unites 21 partners across academia, industry and the NHS under one cohesive programme focused on supercharging the region’s ability to accelerate new health and medical technologies by navigating pinch-points in the process of medical translation. To date 222 companies have been supported, 72 of which have been provided with intensive bespoke development support across product development, clinical support, regulatory and IP advice and access to finance, resulting in 103 jobs being created or safeguarded, £18 million private investment generated and £28 million co-invested in its first year.
- DIATOMIC
Harnessing the region's existing international relationships and through a series of targeted initiatives, this £6.2 million project focuses on growing the region's clean tech, health tech and med tech markets. The programme is led by Connected Places Catapult, the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport and place leadership. It enables civic leaders to set innovation challenges, support local SMEs to respond and benefit the community through the UK's first inclusive innovation hub. It will also promote the use of data to enable better place-based decision making and develop an impact assessment toolkit. To date 9 companies have been provided with trial funding and supported to develop solutions to local authority challenges, creating 6 jobs and generating an additional £500 000 of R&D expenditure. In addition, a digital twin platform has been developed.
- West Midlands Innovation Programme
Managed by the West Midlands Combined Authority, the West Midlands Innovation Programme is a £2.88 million project providing free access to a range of demand led, cross-sector innovation support programmes available to support business growth and access to new markets. Areas covered include circular economy, health, manufacturing, transport, digital and creative. To date, nearly 400 businesses have been supported, 22 jobs created, 578 collaborations facilitated and £6 million of co-investment generated. In parallel, a portfolio of inclusive innovation networks act as gateway points into the regional innovation ecosystem with 97 events delivered, supporting 4,519 delegates to identify collaborations, support and peer to peer networking.
USE-IT
In 2016 they started to think differently. Inspired by a desire to change the city-region’s approach to regeneration and make it more inclusive they developed USE-IT – ‘Unlocking Social and Economic Innovation Together’. With €4 million Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) funding over three years, USE-IT was piloted in collaboration with some of their most underprivileged communities and generated a return on investment of more than €25 million by creating high level jobs for local people; savings to the public sector through benefits payments and recruitment costs; contracts for local businesses; grants won by local organisations and inward investment to the area; all whilst unlocking local assets for local people.
5G Connected Self-Administered Solution for at Home Colon Capsule Endoscopy
WM5G joined forces with a local hospital and leading healthcare organisations on an innovative pilot scheme to deliver a Colon Capsule Endoscopy at home under medical guidance. A smartbox device was developed that can be used to deliver the endoscopy outside of a clinical setting, such as in a patient’s home. Supported by 5G, this device both captures and transmits images of the bowel without the need for the patient to go to hospital. The initial local trial included 20 citizens and is now being scaled with 500 citizens benefitting.
Future Mobility Testbed
The Midlands Future Mobility Initiative, driven by Transport for West Midlands, the city-region’s transport authority, is a testbed comprising a unique combination of campus, urban, rural and 300 miles highway roads settings. The area encompasses major urban centres and key interchanges. The wide range of route types provides innovative businesses opportunities to trial a range of technologies in a range of urban environments.
STEAMhouse
STEAMhouse was launched with in 2022 to provide entrepreneurs and small businesses with a comprehensive set of digital and product development facilities including a fully equipped production space, business incubator, creative sector studio, event space, and digital labs. It has already contributed significantly to generating jobs and economic growth supporting 1,200 of businesses with low-cost space to work, new skills, an innovation mindset and research collaborations, enabling their journey developing new products and services.