Bristol named as world innovation hot spring

Posted on March 5, 2009October 5, 2023 by Rick Hurst

Bristol appears on this innovation map complied by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum. This is fantastic recognition for Bristol. However, as Andy Parkhouse of Team Rubber points out, local government support is extremely patchy when it comes to the digital media industry that helped put us on the map. Bristol seems to be suceeding, despite the lack of funding, but there are numerous successful projects in the city, such as Bristol Media and BMEX, that are being virtually ignored when it comes to funding. As pointed out in one of the comments, it seems that as far as SWRDA are concerned, if it isn’t an old building, or doesn’t appear on TV, they just don’t understand it.

archived comments

As I said in my comment on the original McKinsey article, I believe that this chart seriously underestimates the amount of innovative work taking place in Bristol – and other European cities – because it is based solely on US patents. It is not possible to patent a large part of the digital media and creative work that takes place in this city, so however innovative it may be it will not register on this chart.
Personally, I agree that there should be more support from the government, in terms of either grants or tax breaks, for start up businesses and for research and development. I think SWRDA and similar organisations should take a more proactive role in promoting innovation and idea generation, maybe taking the mediasandbox program as a model?

Nigel Legg 2009-03-05 13:18:46