Can Innovation Districts Create and Spread Prosperity?

Claire MacRae

In November 2024, the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Public Policy brought researchers together with national and local government stakeholders to discuss how innovation districts can create economic growth, whose benefits can be shared equitably with their local populations.

At the event, attendees discussed IPPO’s recent report, Growth Beacons: How Urban Innovation Districts Can Create and Spread Prosperity, and heard five-minute lightning talks – or ‘provocations’ – from Duncan Booker, Glasgow City Council, James Finnie, Community Enterprise in Scotland (CEIS), and Simon Smith, UK Innovations District Group (UKIDG).

The discussion that followed generated conversations around some key themes:

• Embedding innovation districts: How can innovation districts be embedded within long-term policy outlooks, given the lags between an investment taking place and the place-shaping effects that may emerge, and the importance of taking a systems view and building buy-in from a wider set of stakeholders.
• Negative effects: It is important to be alert to the potential negative or unintended effects of innovation districts and consider how to ward off or mitigate such impacts.
• The social economy: The social economy, which reflects a notable share of Glasgow’s economy, must have a stake in the innovation district process; advocates pointed to the importance of this sector of the economy in sustaining the local social fabric.
• Community: Innovation Districts need to be porous and accessible sites to support community engagement.
• Celebrating positive impacts: While being attentive to the challenges and potential downsides that innovation districts may engender, ‘talking up’ the innovation system in Glasgow is important for the notable contribution it is making to the city region’s changing economic story.
• Young people: The role of young people was noted in several respects, from nurturing aspiration and shaping long skills pipelines to considering what young people can do as entrepreneurial actors themselves.
• Complex policymaking landscape: The complex policy landscape was highlighted by attendees and whether there is potential for future devolution to local authorities and linking the multiple strands of innovation strategy (UK Government, Scottish Government and local governments)
• Previous policy forays should inform the present: Though innovation districts are not precisely the same, there may be scope for learning from previous attempts at building clusters and intermediate technology institutes, from what worked well and less well before.

Useful links

Find out more about the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District.