The Prime Minister has set out a package of proposed measures intended to spread research and innovation investment across the UK, including local funding for mayors and £1 billion of UK Research and Innovation backing for selected clusters over four years.
Andy Burnham announced the plans at the Innovation Nation Summit in Manchester on 9 October. He said the government would devolve local innovation partnership funds to established mayors from 2028. The amount available through those local funds, their detailed rules and the timetable for allocating money have not yet been specified.
A separate commitment would see UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) work with the government to identify clusters with the potential to become world-leading and back them with £1bn over the next four years. The announcement did not name the clusters or set out how much each would receive. The money is a planned commitment, not evidence that funding has already been distributed.
Mayors and research clusters
The proposed local partnerships are intended to give established mayors a role in directing dedicated innovation funding. The Prime Minister said local innovation partnership funds would be devolved from 2028, describing this as an initial step towards putting dedicated funding in the hands of local leaders. The policy will depend on further design and delivery decisions, which were not detailed in the speech.
The cluster plan is intended to support areas where research strengths, businesses and public institutions can work together. The government has not yet listed which locations or sectors will qualify. UKRI’s role is described as backing clusters in places identified as having potential, with the selection process and relationship to existing industrial strategy priorities still to be set out.
For London, the announcement matters because it is a national innovation policy with potential consequences for research institutions, firms and investors across the capital. Imperial and Warwick were cited as having formed a partnership, alongside examples of collaboration involving Greater Manchester and Cambridge, and Liverpool and Oxford. These were presented as examples of cross-regional cooperation, not as an announcement that any named partnership had received a share of the new £1bn.
Proposed changes to employment restrictions
The speech also set out the government’s intention to legislate so that non-compete clauses would no longer be a barrier to hiring for the most promising start-ups and scaling firms. Such clauses can restrict a worker from joining a competitor or starting a rival business after leaving a job. The government also said it would ensure workers in the foundational or “everyday” economy were not prevented from moving jobs, and would bring forward options to address the wider use of restrictive practices.
The announcement does not yet explain the legal scope of the changes, which employers or workers would be covered, or when legislation would take effect. Those details remain important: the commitment is an announced intention to legislate, not a change to employment contracts already in force. The government has said more options would follow, but the speech did not provide a complete policy design.
The measures sit within a broader stated ambition to build innovation clusters across every UK region and nation, encourage cooperation between them and improve the prospects for high-growth companies to expand in Britain. The Prime Minister said the government would say more about how a local growth-fund model could be applied at the Budget. That indicates further policy detail is expected, rather than confirming a fully operational national funding programme today.
Research and innovation organisations welcomed the emphasis on research and regional collaboration while noting that the detail of the measures is still to come. The practical effect will depend on decisions about funding allocations, cluster selection, local governance and the eventual legislation on restrictive clauses. Until those are published, the figures and dates announced describe the government’s plans, not completed investment or enacted employment rules.
