The Spotlight on the Supercluster – the heart of national renewal

MIRA Tech Park is quite possibly the region’s best kept secret. Established nearly 80 years ago as the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), the £500m+ comprehensive engineering and testing ecosystem located at the heart of a thousand-acre campus just outside Nuneaton has never been so critical. Regulation demands the automotive industry makes its transition to zero emission at the tailpipe along with the wider decarbonisation of commercial, off-highway, and defence vehicles too. This is coupled with rapid technological change in driver assist and autonomous technologies and an architectural shift to the software-defined vehicle providing the perfect landscape for innovation.

HORIBA MIRA is the one-stop-shop that provides high potential start-ups with the infrastructure and expertise they need to develop next generation vehicles and vehicle technologies. To accelerate the commercialisation of product to market, they tap into the precision measurement and testing equipment of their Japanese parent company HORIBA; the region’s heritage of engineering expertise and multi-disciplinary talent pool supported by university research and Further Education partnerships; and the testbed location of MIRA Tech Park – home to over 40 tenant companies and just shy of 2,000 permanent employees along with thousands of visitors every month. Access to on-demand infrastructure and specialist knowledge reduces costs for a start-up at a critical stage of growth alongside providing a secure and confidential environment for development and testing that enables collaboration with trusted partners.

And this is where the ‘supercluster’ comes in. As well as HORIBA MIRA, the West Midlands is also home to the Advanced Propulsion Centre, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. It is home to world-leading research in crucial new technology areas like artificial intelligence, cyber resilience, functional safety, and electronics. And these are technologies in demand not just in mobility but across sectors like energy, healthcare, water, and defence. But none of these great innovation assets make maximum impact if we don’t realise the value of capital-intensive research and development and deliver once-in-a-generation UK growth by securing a manufacturing pipeline.

This is why HORIBA MIRA are working with the Centre for New Midlands. We have a strong track record delivering on growth through research and development with our start-up tenants raising over $22 billion in venture capital since 2012 and securing over £1 billion in production orders with OEM partners along with 60,000 learners developing new skills through the MIRA Technology Institute and 14 co-sponsored PhDs with Coventry University exploring new areas of automotive research. Now we need to work across the new Midlands aligning our expertise to take world-leading research into product development and provide market opportunity to secure manufacturing at scale. We shouldn’t allow spinouts like Warwick Acoustics to move away from the region for almost a decade only to know they have to return to realise their growth. Even in challenging times for the industry, if we are connected, we are competitive on a global stage.

And Government needs to support us. It feels the Midlands gets forgotten as every region pushes their unique strengths: the fintech capital, the life sciences corridor, the northern powerhouse. As noted by former Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy the Right Honourable Greg Clark, we touch every sector in the Industrial Strategy and we have the capabilities to develop the innovation that will help solve the challenges Government faces across all departments from the Ministry of Housing and of Defence to the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and for Transport. Our biggest champions to date have been in the Department for Business and Trade but we should have a stronger advocate in His Majesty’s Treasury. We enable growth, we derisk public procurement in new technology areas, and we offer talent development opportunities that increase disposable income and tax revenues for UK Plc.

We want MIRA Tech Park to fulfil its role as a true catalyst. We want to work with the Technology Clusters, the Defence Clusters, the Cyber Clusters – not to compete but to collaborate. To show we have the capabilities, campus, and cluster everyone can benefit from to accelerate commercialisation and deliver product to market. Located between the East and West Midlands, we are perfectly positioned to be the heart of national renewal and the home of the new Supercluster.

ABOUT OUR AUTHOR:

Sarah Windrum is a technology business founder and investor leading the development of MIRA Tech Park’s future mobility cluster at the heart of the Midlands. MIRA Tech Park is a thousand-acre site on the Leicestershire and Warwickshire border home to over 40 global tenants specialising in vehicle research & development including zero-emission and cyber resilience technologies. Recent winners of The King’s Award for Sustainable Development, the Tech Park is home to a world-class blend of facilities and expertise at HORIBA MIRA enabling the accelerated delivery of new technologies to market and supporting decarbonisation of transport at scale making all our journeys safer, cleaner, and smarter.

Sarah was formerly Chair of Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and still serves as the Midlands Engine Digital Ambassador and a Director for the Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce. She is Deputy Chair for the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Innovation Board leading on the £33m Innovation Accelerator pilot. She is also a Regional Fellow at University of Warwick and a recent MSc graduate from Coventry University in Data Science.