A new innovation index published by the Open Data Institute (ODI) has revealed that Edinburgh is the most active city for innovation in the UK outside of London. The index, released in the form of an online interactive map, shows the most active innovation clusters in the UK by industry sector.

The sectors examined are:

• All Technology
• Internet of Things
• Virtual Reality
• Artificial Intelligence
• Data
• Health
• Creative
• Manufacturing

According to the index, Edinburgh is the strongest cluster outside of London in a number of sectors, including; All Technology, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Health. It also scores in 3rd place for creative industries, and 5th for Virtual Reality. Its weakest sector is manufacturing, where it scores in 22nd place.

Glasgow is also highlighted, scoring in fourth place overall out of 36 UK cities. Aberdeen and Dundee feature in 20th and 22nd place respectively.  

Glasgow’s strongest sectors are Artificial Intelligence, All Technology, and Health, which feature in 3rd, 4th, and 4th place respectively. Aberdeen is highlighted for innovation in manufacturing, ranking in 2nd place, and Dundee’s most innovative sector is Internet of Things, scoring in 16th place.

According to ODI, the aim of the innovation index is to help gain a clearer picture of the UK innovation landscape, and inform businesses and public-sector decision making around investment and growth.

The index was compiled by combining data on tech events, conferences, and meet-ups from a range of sources with academic publications, local skills measures, business start-up rates, and research and development spending.

The overall findings of the index show that:

• Innovation is unsurprisingly strong in London. However, innovation is not limited to the Southeast. There are other highly active clusters around the country, including Edinburgh.
• Innovation is aligned with local industries. Aberdeen for example, with its strong offshore engineering industries, is very strong in manufacturing innovation.
• Larger cities have strong innovation ecosystems across all measured sectors.

Tom Forth, Head of Data at ODI Leeds, who led the project, explained how their index differs from other innovation research:

“Our approach to measuring innovation pioneers new ways of picking out the early signs that industrial clusters are emerging,” he said. “Our results are largely as expected, with large cities such as London, Manchester, and Glasgow performing strongly in all areas and well-known overachievers such as Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Brighton punching well above their weight.”

“Interestingly, our techniques seem to spot early signs of more focused excellence. In Reading and Liverpool, we see real strength in Internet of Things. Leeds does very well in Health. And in Aberdeen and Coventry, Manufacturing is notably strong. There are early signs of other new clusters emerging in other new fields, right across the country. The data behind these rankings is improving all the time, as more tech events are held, and more scientific papers are published. We hope that by sharing our research at this early stage we can learn from others and improve our techniques even more quickly.”

Jenni Tennison, CEO at ODI, also said:

“This new research reveals that innovation around data isn’t a London-based phenomenon, with the current methodology highlighting active communities in Edinburgh, Manchester, Brighton and Southampton.”

“Using real-time data to identify clusters should help inform innovation policy, where it’s especially important to respond to how things are, rather than how they were, as well as the behaviour of businesses and jobseekers. Developing measures like this in the open also helps to increase our understanding about what drives innovation and which activities create real impact. I’m looking forward to seeing Tom’s work being discussed, adapted and built on.”

The index is the latest addition to a whole host of research proving that Scotland is a worthy place to do tech business. Earlier in the year, Digital Scotland released a report finding that digital technology is the fastest growing sector in Scotland, and is a key contributor to the country’s economic growth and global competitiveness. Additionally, Scotland was found to be the fastest growing digital economy outside of London by law firm Nockolds. Even earlier in the year, property company CBRE found Edinburgh and Glasgow to be amongst the UK’s most creative regions, ranking 3rd and 5th respectively.