Summary

Research and Technology institutes have gained significant attention from policymakers in the UK and around the world due to their pivotal role in fostering wealth creation and enhancing firms' productivity. This renewed interest is driven by two primary factors. Firstly, these institutes occupy a unique position, allowing them to target specific gaps in capabilities that often emerge within the landscape of technology innovation, adoption, and diffusion. Given recent challenges in adopting digital production technologies, exemplified by the 'productivity puzzle,' and the rapid pace of innovation in various sectors, R&D institutes have the potential to speed up capturing economic value. Secondly, these institutes are frequently clustered within regional ecosystems, where they play a distinctive and sophisticated role. Even if their initial formation did not have a regional focus, such as the Manufacturing USA Institutes, they still contribute significantly to regional re-industrialization and diversification. This regional emphasis aligns with the broader trend of local and regional 'place-based' policies in countries such as the UK and US.

The imperative to translate research outputs, or knowledge resources, into the development of local industrial capabilities for value creation and capture is pervasive. This challenge is particularly pronounced in countries with strong academic and early-stage innovation capabilities that struggle to extend these capabilities to support industrial value creation at the regional level.To convert locally created R&D-based value into regional economic growth, it is crucial to translate technical knowledge resources into competitive industrial capabilities. R&D institutes are uniquely positioned to influence regional economic growth because they engage in a comprehensive range of activities beyond applied research. This project investigates the ‘division of labour’ between different types of actors in the ecosystem that perform technology development, workforce development and supply chain development activities.

This project relies on primary data gathering by a comparative case study focusing on the UK and the US. We will explore RTOs functioning with a specific focus on the innovation and adoption mechanisms of digital production technologies, drawing insights from organizations like Manufacturing USA Institutes and Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEPs) in the US, and High Value Manufacturing Catapults and the Made Smarter program in the UK.