North East mayor Kim McGuinness has called for innovation funding to be spread more equally around the country to boost economic growth in regions like hers.
Ms McGuinness was appearing before the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee as they took evidence on innovation and growth in the regions.
She told the committee – chaired by Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah – that too much funding for research and development went to the ‘golden triangle’ area around Oxford, Cambridge and London, despite places like the North East being good at using its expertise to leverage private investment.
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Speaking alongside West of England mayor Dan Norris, she said: “Innovation is critical for growth, it’s a critcal component of our regional growth plan in the North East which is just out for consultation. Some of the challenges relate to the unequal distribution of funding for innovation.
“What we see in the North East is the lowest level of innovation R&D funding through our universities anywhere in the country. It’s disproportionate and we don’t think the current funding model works in order to drive growth in all parts of the country.
“That’s despite the fact that, in a region like ours, we really excel in development of new technology, particularly in pharmaceuticals, in digital and tech, in offshore wind. Despite the lack of funding we punch above our weight, but if we had the funding behind us in a more equally distributed way, I think you would start to see really significant growth and growth in jobs.
“We have made decisions to pump prime where we can with funding for university spin-outs. We’ve made the decision to look at innovation funding with Nissan on battery technology but that funding only goes so far with what we have available to us.
“That unequal distribution, the difficulty attracting capital, for budding and startup business in those sectors and in innovation makes it quite difficult for us in comparison to, say, the golden triangle.”
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Ms McGuinness said different pots of Government funding often pitted different regions against each other in trying to attract finance. She said the Government’s Devolution White Paper could be a step forward in helping regions like the North East to set its own agenda.
She said: “A region like ours, with four universities that all excel in different areas of research and development, have really successful spin-out programmes where we’ve got some incredible budding businesses really making waves internationally, we shouldn’t have the lowest level of funding in the country.”
The committee also heard from one of its members, former Conservative Science Minister George Freeman, who praised Northumbria University for its work in driving industrial collaboration.
In a later session, the committee heard evidence from Dr Natasha Boulding, founder of Earthshot Prize nominated company company Low Carbon Materials. She said the company’s location in County Durham made it more difficult to raise funding and to bring in talent.