The Loughborough Area of Innovation is a blueprint for how Loughborough and the wider region can maximise current and future initiatives to help nurture nationwide economic growth.

“The vision outlined in the Loughborough Area of Innovation document harnesses Loughborough University’s outward-facing approach of working with partners from business, industry and the public sector to address major challenges and advance realistic solutions,” says Professor Robert Allison, Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University.

“Loughborough is a top 10 UK university with an outstanding record in research, education and industry engagement, and we play an important part in many of the Area’s existing and evolving projects that will help to drive the implementation and realisation of the Government’s Industrial Strategy.”

The Industrial Strategy sets out a long-term plan to boost productivity and people’s earning power across the UK through investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. 

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, provides the foreword to the Loughborough Area of Innovation document. In it he says: “Each of our cities, towns and rural areas has competitive advantages that are essential to shaping our economic future. Loughborough is a striking illustration of this. Through partnerships forged locally and nationally, leading academics and cutting-edge companies are working together to develop new approaches in disciplines as diverse as autonomous vehicles, biotech, low carbon technologies and sports medicine.”

Professor Allison continues: “The Loughborough Area of Innovation is an approach that illustrates that engaged partners working together across the private, public, voluntary and educational sectors can and will achieve sustained inclusive growth. These are truly partnerships for shared prosperity, that are all about ‘Building a Britain fit for the future’.

“Launching the Loughborough Area of Innovation is, of course, just the start of a sustained process that will deliver growing benefits over many years. We will be looking to engage with our partners, to start conversations and explore opportunities, and to understand how we might collectively make this vision a reality.”

For further information contact Hannah Baldwin, Head of Corporate Communications, E: h.e.baldwin@lboro.ac.uk, T: 01509 222239