Greater Manchester's Innovation Accelerator is driving growth through collaboration

Cultivating impactful relationships and regional growth in Greater Manchester

Innovate UK’s Innovation Accelerator (IA) pilot programme has been a game-changer in fostering regional growth and collaboration in Greater Manchester.

The two-year project was launched in March 2023, running to March 2025, but has just received a £30 million funding extension to March 2026 across all three regions, Glasgow, West Midlands and Greater Manchester.

The pilot enabled key areas of the innovation agenda to be fully explored by developing closer relationships and learnings to help inform future policy on innovation.

The IA has delivered two core lines of value for the GM innovation community: tangible impacts through the delivery of critical innovation ecosystem assets plus a set of valuable insights generated throughout the prototyping process that can be used to help shape our future investment strategy. The IA’s collaborative approach has also cemented working relationships across a range of key ecosystem partners, providing a solid foundation for future initiatives.

Professor Lou Cordwell OBE, Chair, Greater Manchester Business Board and CEO, Unit M & Special Advisor to The Office of the President & Vice Chancellor, University of Manchester.

Delivering growth with a localised approach

Innovation Greater Manchester came together post-pandemic to help navigate and bring together very complex sets of stakeholders across academia, industry, the voluntary sector, communities, and both local and national government, all working together to unlock the potential of the innovation economy, now known as the ‘growth agenda’.

The IA programme provided a unique opportunity to test hypotheses in real-world settings, and those projects emerging from the programme have made significant impacts in just two years. The programme has supported more than 500 businesses to take forward innovations, while over 1000 Greater Manchester residents have accessed skills support – to either upskill or begin their journey to a career in a high-growth sector.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has particularly welcomed the localised, ecosystem-oriented approach of the IA, which focuses less on building infrastructure and more on creating interconnections and fostering a robust innovation ecosystem.

Unlocking value with impactful collaboration

The universities have also played a crucial role in this initiative, acting as hyper-local catalysts in areas where they have specific cluster strengths, such as materials, manufacturing, genomics and AI in Greater Manchester. This involvement has allowed them to unlock substantial value and drive innovation forward.

The co-design of the pilot between IGM and IUK has allowed the sharing of expertise and best practice, to leverage national policy and resources and local understanding of specific innovation ecosystems and what they need to grow. The collaboration has highlighted the importance of people and programmes, yielding significant dividends despite the challenges of a compressed two-year timeframe. The additional £10 million extension for each region runs to March 2026 provides further flexibility to continue the momentum over the next 12-months.

The work delivered has been highly output-focused, resulting in the creation of meaningful networks and lasting relationships. Partners and stakeholders have embarked on a collective learning journey, creating something new that they can be proud of whilst adding tangible value to a new paradigm shift in ways of working. An approach that has proven to be highly effective in bringing together diverse stakeholders, while strengthening key relationships.

Meanwhile, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Memorandum of Understanding with Innovate UK signed in November 2022 underpins the programme, and has delivered tangible benefits for businesses, people, and communities of the region, by demonstrating and showcasing the real-world impact of these collaborative efforts.

As the IA programme continues to evolve, it promises to drive further innovation and growth across the Greater Manchester region.