In a new series of blogs, we will be looking at the current and historical work of City-REDI.
In this instalment, Dr Chloe Billing shares findings from a report on innovation intermediaries and their role in regional innovation systems, co-authored with Dr Carolin Ioramashvili, Dr Pei-Yu Yuan, Dr Magda Rosario Cepeda Zorrilla, Professor Simon Collinson, and Professor Fumi Kitagawa.
Why Innovation Intermediaries Matter
Bridging the gap between research and real-world application remains one of the most persistent challenges in innovation policy. Without effective mechanisms to connect the two, the consequences are: productivity stagnates, industrial competitiveness erodes, and the economic potential of publicly funded research goes unrealised. Universities generate frontier knowledge and firms drive commercialisation, but promising ideas too often fall into the so-called “valley of death” — the gap between a research breakthrough and a marketable product, where promising ideas never reach the businesses or communities that could benefit from them. Innovation intermediaries play a critical role in addressing this gap by coordinating collaboration, recombining knowledge, and translating research into market-ready solutions.
A City-REDI affiliated policy briefing, Bridging the Innovation Gap: Innovation intermediaries as place-based policy measures, provides fresh empirical insights into how these organisations operate — and why their organisational structures matter for regional innovation systems.
About the Research
The study focuses on the West Midlands, a region with deep manufacturing heritage and significant post-industrial economic challenges. It examines two advanced manufacturing innovation intermediaries operating under the UK Catapult Centres programme:
- Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) — a university-based organisation
- Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) — an industry-oriented organisation structured as a company
Although both operate in high-value manufacturing and belong to the same national Catapult network, they differ markedly in governance, funding models, and strategic orientation. Using a mixed-methods approach — combining UKRI project data on over 1,000 firms, social network analysis, and stakeholder interviews — the research explores how these structural differences shape collaboration patterns, knowledge recombination, and innovation outcomes.
Key Findings
- Organisational structure directly shapes innovation pathways
The research shows that intermediary organisations are not neutral brokers. Their internal structures and incentives directly shape the type of innovation they support:
- WMG tends to prioritise exploratory, experimental, and mission-led research, often driven by university agendas and societal challenges.
- MTC focuses more on incremental, applied innovation, closely aligned with industry needs and commercialisation pathways.
- Different intermediaries enable different forms of collaboration
Using social network analysis, the study highlights how intermediaries shape regional and inter-regional collaboration networks:
- WMG’s activities strengthen regional academic–industry linkages, particularly involving SMEs and local innovation ecosystems.
- MTC plays a stronger role in bridging firm sizes — connecting large manufacturers with SMEs and supporting technology diffusion beyond the region.
Together, these organisations increase the diversity and resilience of the West Midlands innovation system.
- Exploration and exploitation are complementary — not competing
A key contribution of the research is showing that different innovation intermediaries fulfil complementary functions:
- Unconventional, cross-sector collaborations — for example, pairing aerospace firms with healthcare researchers to develop new materials — are more likely to emerge through exploratory intermediaries like WMG.
- More conventional industry pairings, such as a tier-one supplier working with an OEM, support adoption, upgrading, and process innovation through applied intermediaries like MTC.
Rather than choosing between “frontier-pushing” or “commercially oriented” models, the evidence suggests regions benefit most from hosting a portfolio of heterogeneous intermediaries.
Why This Matters for Policy
The findings carry important implications for national, regional, and local innovation policy:
- One-size-fits-all approaches do not work. National funders such as UKRI and Innovate UK should recognise how organisational structures condition intermediary performance and design funding accordingly.
- Place-based strategies matter. Sub-national policymakers should align intermediary capabilities with local industrial profiles, innovation needs, and firm capabilities.
- Diversity builds resilience. Regions like the West Midlands benefit from intermediaries that support both long-term technological exploration and near-market innovation diffusion.
City-REDI Insights
This report strengthens City-REDI’s long-standing emphasis on place-based innovation policy, and points to a broader research agenda. Future work will explore how intermediary portfolios evolve over time, how they interact with anchor institutions, and what lessons the West Midlands model holds for other post-industrial regions seeking to build more adaptive innovation systems.
Read the full policy briefing
This blog was written by Dr Chloe Billing, Research Fellow, City-REDI.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.