Can Innovation Districts and Knowledge Quarters deliver genuinely inclusive growth? Five big takeaways from LEDC’s episode with Emma Frost

David Marlow
May 16
5 min read

Emma Frost, Chair of the UK Innovation Districts Group (UKIDG) and Director of Fern Consulting joined us on LEDC this month to discuss Innovation Districts (IDs). What are success factors for an ID, and should all ambitious places have at least one? How can IDs benefit less-advantaged communities and non-traditional businesses? In a lively discussion, Emma positions the best IDs as the ‘coral reefs’ of LED and placemaking, enabling ‘lost Einsteins’ to realise their business ideas and potential. And she backs this up with many examples. This blog discusses five big ticket issues surfaced in conversation with Emma that merit further thinking and development to deliver an ID or Knowledge Quarter as part of your LED and placemaking mix.

Three overlapping circles labeled Physical, Economic, and Networking Assets in yellow, orange, and blue; central area labeled Innovation Ecosystem.

What makes a place able to call itself an Innovation District or Knowledge Quarter?

Mike and I positioned IDs as almost the archetypal LEDC intervention – a mix of knowledge-led innovation hub AND an urban regeneration programme. Emma confirmed the Wagner and Katz formulation opposite. In contrast to out-of-town science and business parks, the ID is a mixed-use quarter which is part of the wider urban fabric – hosting knowledge assets that can catalyse growth and development, regenerating often under-utilised de-industrialised spaces, with the soft infrastructure and embedded networking to create living and working places and communities with an ‘urban buzz’.

Can and should all places have an Innovation District or Knowledge Quarter?

A full-service ID needs to be appropriate for the places and communities that host it. Emma advocates an ‘ABCD’ approach – asset-based community development, with at least one (and ideally more than one) major local anchor institution. Although the anchor institution is most often drawn from Universities, a Teaching Hospital, global technology and/or manufacturing businesses, we discussed other examples. Large sporting or cultural institutions can be important anchors. Emma even referenced current developments in Bournemouth anchored by a landowning charitable trust (Talbot Village Trust) – albeit in this case it is in association with the two universities and the building of a new hospital. Even in places without all the ingredients for an ID at scale, Emma commends the collaborative leadership models that many successful IDs have (anchor institutions, tenants, local communities, government, business) for inclusive growth and delivery of change.

Do Innovation Districts deliver INCLUSIVE growth?

A major challenge for IDs and Knowledge Quarters is balancing the breadth of goals necessary for viability and success – financial, property, research, business, environmental sustainability and community regeneration. Major role players – government, business, universities – may not always share priorities. The distribution of ID benefits and outcomes can sometimes reinforce either enclave developments or gentrification and displacement that disadvantage local communities. Emma gave several examples of win-wins – a physical bridge connecting Glasgow Riverside ID to neighbouring Govan; Sheffield AMID’s technological innovations being adapted and diffused to be relevant for local manufacturers. It is possible to identify win-wins for multiple goals, and David’s work with the ‘Improving Inclusive innovation Outcomes’ (i3o) programme and community of practice has developed and tested a number of tools and frameworks that can be part of these agendas.

How might Innovation Districts and Knowledge Quarters evolve in the future?

The evolution of IDs as an urban form and innovation hub is almost integral to the concept. Emma references London Cancer Hub in Sutton, which is exploring new ID frontiers from, among others, commercialisation space at scale to the presence of a STEM Secondary School on site. She questions whether the BID format might offer a model/concept for future funding IDs and Knowledge Quarters. Many IDs are demonstrating new solutions to decarbonisation, energy use, and urban living more broadly. The i3o programme has been facilitating discussions between participating IDs on issues from explicit contributions to city and regional strategies to community agency and influence to translating global grand societal challenges for local relevance and impact. ID and Knowledge Quarters will, almost by definition, be at the forefront of innovation in LED and placemaking in the places where they are located. The challenge for local leadership teams will be in adaptation and adoption of successful IF innovations for scale up and scale out purposes.

What are the leadership and public policy requirements that will best ensure future Innovation District success?

Emma prescriptions for public policy enablers of ID success echo so many of the themes that are constantly discussed on LEDC. Consistent, long-run support is critical in a world of stop-start subnational economic public policy and fragmented funding regimes. This can be as much a challenge for local and regional as for national government. The episode illustrates how much IS known about ID success in economic and business growth terms, and even about how to increase inclusion-rich impacts ad outcomes. Giving IDs and Knowledge Quarters proactive and enduring local support and a permissive runway for experimentation and evolution will unlock the best opportunities for places’ IDs to be catalysts for economic but also social and environmental transformation.

Concluding remarks

We hope you find the discussions with Emma engaging and helpful. IDs are an important urban and LED form that can be at the forefront of how we deliver change and transformation effectively. Do give us your feedback on the episode. Which of the many issues would you like us to return to in future episodes, shots and blogs? And what do you think of the points made? Are you working with existing IDs and Knowledge Quarters or do you aspire towards establishing one? Please let us know and let’s keep the discussions going.