Prime Minister Andy Burnham today, 9 October 2026, announced a national goal for Britain to become the world's leading innovation nation. Speaking at the Innovation Nation Summit, Mr Burnham stated that the UK is already an innovation nation but needs to challenge itself to go further.
The Prime Minister outlined that becoming the world's leading innovation nation would mean having a globally significant cluster and a globally significant company in every region and nation of the UK. This initiative aims to foster opportunity, investment, growth, and jobs, distributed across the UK as part of a new national drive to re-industrialise the country as an innovation-led, research-driven economy.
Mr Burnham highlighted the UK's historical contributions to innovation, referencing figures such as Ernest Rutherford, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, and Tim Berners-Lee. He also pointed to current regional strengths, including an expanding creative sector in Liverpool, advanced manufacturing in South Yorkshire, a large fintech sector in Edinburgh, and the biggest UK AI cluster outside London and the South East in Greater Manchester.
The Prime Minister acknowledged the role of world-class universities, with 16 in the top 100 globally, in driving the UK's innovation economy. He also noted that the UK Biobank is soon to complete its move to Manchester Science Park, which he said would mark a major step forward for life sciences in that region.