Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, persuant to the oral question of 15th October, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the Baseline Report: The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership; whether its metrics can be incorporated into the Dashboard requested by the Science Innovation and Technology Committee; and when that Dashboard will be provided.

In July, we announced that we will support mayors to foster local innovation ecosystems, devolving a substantially increased share of later-stage innovation funding to local leaders. The ability to track and share the right data to monitor shared outcomes will be key to this, and we will make this a focus of our work with local leaders.

The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership’s Baseline Report provides a valuable snapshot of the innovation ecosystems of both cities and establishes a common measurement architecture. This analysis is supporting the Department in considering monitoring and data requirements around innovation clusters, and will inform discussions with local leaders on future data needs.