Yorkshire's Data City to help Government identify nation's high-potential business clusters

The work will help DSIT drive the growth of the UK economy and support the government’s Growth Plan.

The project will see expert analysts from The Data City working closely with both organisations to explore science, technology, research and innovation cluster formation and performance.

It involves identifying groups of businesses with a high potential for growth and sharing characteristics that can be defined as a cluster.

Alex Craven, CEO of The Data City, said: “It is a testament to the hard work of our team that we can work in partnership with leading organisations to play an important part in the UK’s Growth Plan.

"The innovative approach we have proposed will prove more effective in identifying a wider selection of clusters of different types than any single approach would be capable of, leading to a much more comprehensive and detailed picture of the UK cluster landscape that will ensure that support is targeted to companies with great potential for growth and job creation.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The primary focus of the multi-stage study is to identify groups of firms that meet the different criteria and can be considered ‘true’ clusters. The project involves collecting, processing and analysing four primary datasets before data processing and analysis.

The team will then identify groups of firms based on their patterns of activity and location. The work will be undertaken through network analysis of the UKRI and Patent and Academic Activity Datasets. Both databases will then be linked, and a complete list of clusters will be finalised.

As registered secure data users, Cambridge Econometrics will process all secure microdata and ensure non-disclosive before sharing it with other partners.

Once the data has been collected, processed and checked, it will be used to produce the final report, added to the cluster database, and built into an interactive website created by The Data City.

The Data City team has spent the last seven years working with industry bodies, academic and sector experts and government departments to build an extensive library of new economy sector classifications that, once classified, are made available to all of its customers.