Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2023 to Question 132389 on Innovation and Research, what discussions she has had with North East Universities on clustering of innovation in the North East.

The Department and officials regularly engage with universities and university bodies, including the Russell Group, on a range of issues and is working on a new interactive cluster mapping tool.

Universities play important roles in their local economies including through education, skills, research, working with local businesses and as employers.

The Department supports universities to further this economic role by funding schemes such as Higher Education Innovation Funding which incentivises universities to work with businesses, public and third sector organisations to increase the economic and societal benefit from their work.

The Connecting Capability Fund which supports universities in sharing good practice in knowledge exchange and commercialisation has supported the Northern Accelerator initiative which has brought together universities in the Northeast to boost their commercialisation activity.