Unlocking the potential of the Oxford-Cambridge Corridor

The Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board commissioned Cambridge Econometrics, working with academic partners at the Innovation and Research Caucus, to develop a compelling long-term economic vision for the Corridor.

Our work went beyond describing the region’s existing strengths. We combined new thinking about how successful innovation regions develop with a detailed evidence base on the Corridor itself, using the resulting analysis to identify the strategic changes needed for Oxford-Cambridge to realise its potential as a globally significant innovation supercluster.

Approach

We started by asking a fundamental question: what would it actually mean for Oxford-Cambridge to function as a successful supercluster?

We developed a novel conceptual framework bringing together insights on innovation systems, knowledge and value chains, technology commercialisation and adoption, cluster evolution and regional economic development. This enabled us to look beyond individual clusters and places and understand the Corridor as a connected system through which research and ideas are converted into technologies, commercial applications, growing businesses and ultimately economic value.

We then tested this theory against a detailed empirical assessment of the Corridor. Our analysis brought together evidence on the economy and labour market with detailed information on scientific research, publications and citations, patents, UKRI-funded projects, collaboration networks, innovative firms, employment, infrastructure and technological specialisms.

This revealed both the exceptional scale of the opportunity and the structural barriers preventing it from being fully realised. The Corridor contains 183 established innovation clusters, including 33 ranked among the UK top 10 in their respective fields, more than 15,900 knowledge-intensive firms and almost 240,000 R&D-intensive jobs. Yet these assets do not currently operate as a sufficiently integrated innovation system.

The analysis therefore provided the foundation for the vision itself. Rather than starting with a predetermined ambition and seeking evidence to support it, we used the evidence to establish what the Corridor could plausibly become, what would need to change to achieve it, and how different interventions would reinforce one another.

Vision and key findings

Our analysis showed that Oxford-Cambridge combines extraordinary concentrations of research, technology and innovative businesses with insufficient scale, connectivity and integration.

Oxford and Cambridge are amongst the most innovation-intensive economies in the UK, but constraints including housing, transport, infrastructure, water and labour supply increasingly restrict their ability to grow. At the same time, stronger connections between the Corridor’s different innovation centres could allow ideas, technologies, people, investment and expertise to move more effectively between places and industries.

We translated this diagnosis into an ambitious headline vision: for Oxford-Cambridge to become a top-10 global innovation cluster.

Our benchmarking placed the combined region at around 37th globally and indicated that reaching the top 10 would require approximately a tripling of innovation activity. Achieving this would create an innovation economy of genuinely global scale, while strengthening the wider UK innovation system.

We also developed an internally consistent economic scenario illustrating what successful delivery of that ambition could mean. Under this scenario, real regional GVA could increase from around £190 billion in 2023 to around £340 billion by 2050, approximately £80 billion higher than under the non-intervention trajectory. Employment could reach around 4.25 million, accompanied by substantial increases in productivity.

From the evidence, we developed three strategic objectives:

1. Create a single Oxford-Cambridge innovation ecosystem, connecting the Corridor’s existing centres of excellence through stronger physical, economic and innovation links so that they increasingly function as one system.
2. Establish the Supercluster as the UK’s global innovation gateway, attracting international talent, technology and investment while connecting UK businesses and research institutions more effectively with global innovation networks and markets.
3. Make the Supercluster a hub for the wider UK innovation system, connecting emerging technologies developed in Oxford-Cambridge with established clusters and adopting industries elsewhere in the country so that innovation, investment and productivity benefits spread beyond the Corridor itself.

The result is therefore more than a growth forecast or assessment of regional strengths. It is an evidence-based proposition for how the economic geography of the Corridor could be transformed, and how doing so could generate benefits for both the region and the wider UK.

Impact

The work provided the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board with both the economic evidence base and the strategic framework for articulating the Corridor’s long-term opportunity.

By moving systematically from theory, to evidence, to diagnosis, to vision, Cambridge Econometrics was able to turn a complex set of economic, technological and spatial relationships into a clear strategic proposition: connect the Corridor into a single innovation ecosystem, use that scale to compete globally, and build stronger links between the Supercluster and the rest of the UK, to ensure the entire country benefits.

This framework has subsequently provided a basis for engagement around implementation. The Supercluster Board’s programme of work to turn the vision into action has included stakeholder workshops examining how the strategic priorities can be delivered in practice, including the integration of Oxford-Cambridge into a single innovation ecosystem.

Outcome

The project demonstrates how rigorous economic analysis can do more than quantify an opportunity. It can help define one.

By combining novel conceptual thinking with detailed empirical evidence, we developed a persuasive and measurable vision for the future of the Oxford-Cambridge Corridor and translated that vision into strategic objectives capable of guiding investment, infrastructure, innovation and economic-development decisions.

The result is a framework for moving from a collection of internationally significant assets towards an integrated, globally competitive innovation economy, with the potential to strengthen both the Corridor and the wider UK economy.