Supporting local ecosystems to engineer better lives
As a national Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering provides specialist support for engineering and technology startups and scale ups across the UK.
Place underpins the Academy’s 2030 Strategy, shaping how we deliver our goals. We are committed to strengthening our place-based approach, ensuring that our products and activities respond to national, regional, and global needs.
Regional Enterprise Hubs provide the Academy with a unique network through which we can grow and build on existing programme and policy support, and through which we can build and mobilise regional and national networks of innovators. We will also pilot novel approaches to place-based support, responding to each place’s specific context.
By embedding ourselves in local innovation ecosystems, we are better equipped to understand and respond to regional needs, enabling us to deliver meaningful impact at a local, national, and global level.
Expanding our regional network
Sheffield marks the Academy’s sixth location outside of London, alongside Belfast, Swansea, Glasgow, Newcastle and Liverpool. The Enterprise Hub in Sheffield will seek to support bold, IP-rich innovations from all areas of engineering and technology, from across the Yorkshire and Humber region.
Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub network
Our regional Hubs
Meet the team
Engineering, economy and place
This report looks at the engineering economy in places across the UK and shares a framework for thinking about the role of engineering in local economies.
Engineers are drivers of economic opportunity, positive social impact and advances in technology innovation.
Engineering jobs tend to be relatively high-wage and high-productivity, and therefore should be of considerable value to the local economies in which they are located.
Given the UK has significant geographical inequality, with successes and opportunities not equally spread across the country, we wanted to understand the role engineering currently plays in local economies across the UK.