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| By Manchester Skyline by Peter McDermott, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163845445 |
According to the WIPO Innovation Cluster Ranking 2025, Manchester has entered the top 100 of the world's most innovative clusters for the first time. It is one of four British cities to make the ranking. The others are London (#8), Cambridge (#69) and Oxford (#77). Manchester comes in at #94. The top 5 clusters are Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Tokyo-Yokohama. San Jose-San Francisco, Beijing and Seoul in that order
WIPO states that innovation clusters are established through an analysis of patent-filing activity, scientific article publication and venture capital activity, documenting the geographical areas around the world with the highest density of inventors, scientific authors and venture capitalists. As I recognize similar activity in other UK city regions, including the West Midlands, Bristol-Newport-Cardiff, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, Tyneside, Glasgow and Edinburgh, there is every chance that some of them will join the ranking too.
At present, China has 24 clusters in the top 100, the USA 22, Germany 7, India and the UK 4 each and Japan, Canada and South Korea 3 each, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Spain, Sweden and Malaysia 2 each.
In a focus on Manchester, the WIPO reports that 313 PCT applications were filed from the cluster, 4,003 scientific articles by Manchester authors were published, and 198 venture capital deals were made. The top PCT applicants were the University of Manchester, followed by Micromass and Prevayl. Most academic articles came from the University of Manchester followed by the Metropolitan University and Salford.
Further information is available in WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2025 Ranking of World's Top 100 Innovation Clusters. Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page.
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