UMIC currently sits within the exciting and growing area of Corridor Manchester – the backbone of the city’s knowledge economy. The businesses and institutions that occupy the Corridor employ 55,000 people -18% of the city’s workforce. Together, they generate £2.8 billion (22.5% of the city’s Gross Value Added, GVA), while over 40% of activity is knowledge intensive, almost double the national average.
In particular, the Manchester Incubator Building and the Core Technology Facility sit at the heart of an exciting cluster that generates ideas and intellectual property. The University of Manchester’s Faculties of Life Sciences, Medical and Human Sciences, and Engineering & Physical Sciences together with UMIP Limited, are all closely located in the Corridor. Also within close proximity is the Central Manchester Health Trust, with its array of clinics and research centres in Medicine, the innovation management team of Trustech and the Northwest Genetics Knowledge Park.
This has created an exciting Biotechnology and Hi-Tech cluster right in the heart of the University of Manchester campus and there is no doubt that the Manchester Incubator Building and the Core Technology Facility play an important role in harnessing these activities.
In addition to the Bioscience-based activities, there are significant Hi-Tech research activities that are complementary and relevant to the Corridor. This includes a world class Materials Science Centre, which is the largest single Materials focus in any European University. In addition, the Organic Materials Centre (OMIC) also has a commercial focus and interests in assisting SME’s. OMIC is a UK government supported University Innovation Centre for the speciality organic materials and polymer industries, and is bridging the gap between the knowledge which UK Universities generate and that which businesses need in order to innovate and grow.
Furthermore, the School of Chemistry (from which Nanoco Technologies Ltd. spun out) has a growing reputation for work at the academic commercial interface. Corridor Manchester is growing rapidly and is making a significant contribution to both the University of Manchester’s drive towards academic research excellence, and also to the commercial SME clusters that are ideally positioned in both the Manchester Incubator Building and the Core Technology Facility, to engage with this highly reputable Centre of Excellence.
