NWDA

The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) leads the economic development and regeneration of England's Northwest. As a business-led organisation, the NWDA provides a crucial link between the needs of business and government policies. As such, a major responsibility for the agency is to help create an environment in which businesses can flourish through offering business support, encouraging new start-ups, matching skills provision to employer needs and bringing business investment into
the region.

Through sustained investment in the region’s people and businesses, and with a remit increasingly focused on providing strategic leadership, the NWDA will continue to create real economic benefits for the Northwest. This is focused through the delivery of the Regional Economic Strategy (RES), designed to realise transformational change in the region. The RES focuses this transformational change through a number of key sectors:

• Advanced Engineering & Materials (including Advanced Flexible Materials,Aerospace, Automotive, Chemicals)
• Biomedical
• Business and Professional Services
• Digital and Creative Industries
• Energy and Environmental Technologies
• Food and Drink

NWDA & Science

The Northwest region has an economy of over £100 billion, and 30% of this is dependent on science & technology. In response to this significant impact on the regional economy, the NWDA has developed its own Regional Science Strategy which focuses on a number of key science-based sectors:

NWDA and Daresbury SIC

A key part of this is investment in infrastructure at strategic sites in the region. This has included over £50 million of investment at Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus to provide the Daresbury Innovation Centre and Cockcroft Institute buildings. In addition the NWDA have provided significant financial support to help develop and grow the Daresbury SIC management team which provides support to businesses on campus as well as those in the region. The NWDA is a key stakeholder in Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus and will continue to play a pivotal role to enable the campus to deliver significant benefit to the region’s science-based economy.

NWDA and Support to Businesses

Alongside this the NWDA also provides support to science-based businesses through the following mechanisms:

• Strengthening of the research base in the Northwest
• Development of sector-focused support organisations (eg Bionow)
• Promotion of knowledge transfer in partnership with the regional universities, Daresbury Laboratory and other research organisations
• Development of skills infrastructures across all ages in the region
• Provision of investment support through regional Venture Capital funds