Executive Summary

IRISH SEA RIM OVERVIEW

THE NEED AND OPPORTUNITY

In March 2025, the landmark UK-Ireland Summit heralded a new era of strategic cooperation, creating a critical opportunity to forge a more resilient, prosperous future. The Irish Sea Rim answers this call by proposing and establishing a unified transnational Investment Innovation and Enterprise Zone to provide a vital complement and counterbalance to the economic concentration in London and the Greater South East.

The Irish Sea Rim provides a strategic framework to deliver on UK-Ireland Summit priorities by connecting a network of world-leading assets into a cohesive and globally competitive innovation zone. Assets include globally significant life sciences hubs in Liverpool and Manchester, the world's first compound semiconductor cluster in Wales and Dublin's digital economy.

As climate change places increasing pressure on the Greater South East, the Irish Sea’s natural assets and concentration of high-value jobs make it a secure and attractive destination for investment, talent, and sustainable living.

By harnessing the opportunities for a clean, green, and blue transformation - from developing green shipping corridors to leading in offshore and tidal energy, the Irish Sea Rim can drive sustainable, inclusive economic growth for all who live here.

IRISH SEA RIM STRATEGIC OVERVIEW

CONNECTING PLACES & SHARING GROWTH

LIVERPOOL AND DUBLIN – DUAL ANCHORS

The reactivated twinning arrangement between Liverpool and Dublin is a pivotal moment for the Irish Sea region, building on deep cultural and historical links to unlock significant economic opportunities. This powerful synergy is poised to drive innovation and attract investment by leveraging the cities' complementary strengths across key priority sectors. The partnership is already pioneering advancements in maritime decarbonisation through the planned development of future green shipping corridors, advancing the digital and data economy with cutting-edge technology, and accelerating the net-zero transition with ambitious renewable energy projects.

By acting as twin anchor hubs, Liverpool City Region and the Greater Dublin Area will spearhead wider regional rebalancing and connected prosperity through creation of a resilient and interconnected regional economy. The collaboration, working in alignment with the cities and regions across the Irish Sea Rim has the potential to ensure that the economic, social, and environmental gains are felt across all communities of the Irish Sea, transforming prospects in areas that have previously been underserved.

The Irish Sea Rim is the crucial enabler that connects, bridges, and amplifies the power of this partnership. By fostering a collaborative, transnational innovation supercluster, the Irish Sea Rim catalyses the transformation of the Irish Sea from a barrier into a bridge for shared growth, securing a sustainable future for the entire region.

A NEW PARADIGM FOR REGIONAL GROWTH

The Irish Sea Rim Strategic Vision is embodied by the ISR50 Spherical Economy, creating a bold new paradigm for regional growth, designed to transform the Irish Sea region into a digitally enhanced, human-centric ecosystem. This model connects fragmented business services, supply chains, and places to tackle socio-economic inequalities and foster inclusive prosperity. It addresses the critical governmental priority of regional rebalancing while strengthening post-Brexit UK-Ireland trade and delivering sustainable growth for all communities.

Our Operational Framework provides a systematic approach to harnessing the region’s complexity and its full growth and impact potential. Organised around the three pillars of Optimising Conditions, Catalysing Innovation, and Driving Impact, the framework fosters a holistic, self-organising ecosystem to catalyse innovation and create powerful policy, funding, and industry feedback loops to ensure strategic interventions are effective, impactful, and resilient across the Irish Sea Rim.

The Bridge Framework is an iterative process, providing a uniquely powerful and reproducible mechanism for building resilient partnerships and driving sustainable growth. Connecting across the quadruple helix, the Bridge Framework ensures co-production with local stakeholders is grounded in real-world needs and gains place-based support, transforming governmental strategic priorities into quantifiable economic and social benefits and connected prosperity across the whole Irish Sea region.

THE IRISH SEA RIM AT A GLANCE

MARITIME AND THE IRISH SEA RIM

The Irish Sea Rim is rooted in the region's maritime identity. By acting as a cross-border convener, we will catalyse the strategic transformation of the Irish Sea into a globally competitive and sustainable maritime supercluster. The Irish Sea Rim will support key initiatives, including the Liverpool-Belfast Green Shipping Corridor and the region's Ports and Freeports. We will establish the Irish Sea Rim Environmental and Scientific Observatory to de-risk investment in offshore energy and port modernisation while safeguarding Marine Conservation Zones. The proposed Irish Sea Rim Doctoral Training Centre in Maritime and Marine will build a pipeline of world-class talent and unlock the region’s economic and environmental potential.

MARITIME AND GREEN SHIPPING

The Irish Sea is rapidly transforming into a global leader in maritime decarbonisation, leveraging its role as a vital UK-Ireland trade artery. This economic powerhouse is creating a blueprint for zero-emission shipping that cements the region's international reputation and attracts global investment.

The Irish Sea Rim is the catalyst to deliver this vision. As a neutral and cross sector apolitical convening mechanism, we can help dissolve barriers across borders, sectors, and places to maximise collaboration, and connect expertise. We help accelerate the adoption of green technologies and build essential skills pipelines, while also working with academia and places to support the monitoring and evaluation of the environmental impacts and gains of Green Shipping initiatives.

DEFENCE & SECURITY

The Irish Sea region is a globally significant powerhouse for the defence and security sector, underpinned by the AUKUS security pact and a concentration of critical national assets. It is the epicentre of the UK’s advanced maritime manufacturing, with Scotland building all major surface naval assets for the Royal Navy and Barrow-in-Furness serving as the sole site for constructing nuclear-powered submarines for both the Royal Navy and AUKUS partners. This industrial base is enhanced by major aerospace clusters across Wales, Belfast, and North West England, particularly the North West and the South West Regional Defence and Security Clusters. The Irish Sea Region also has substantial investment into defence-related cybersecurity in Belfast and the establishment of the UK's National Cyber Force campus in Lancashire, cementing its international reputation and influence.

The Irish Sea Rim acts as a strategic enabler to help connect and bridge across the region’s defence assets to support a cohesive, transnational industrial base. By brokering relationships and creating trusted shared forums, it connects Scotland's naval shipbuilding yards, Barrow's AUKUS submarine programme, and the aerospace and cybersecurity clusters. This integration enables a more resilient and innovative supply chain for the UK's most critical national security programmes. The Irish Sea Rim’s unique, apolitical role allows it to bridge key stakeholders across governmental, industrial, and academic divides - linking key industrial partners with specialist university research and regional security clusters. This targeted collaboration accelerates the translation of cutting-edge R&D into operational capability and strengthens the UK-Ireland security partnership. In doing so, the Irish Sea Rim is a key partner in realising the vision of the Irish Sea as a Safe Lake - a secure, collaborative maritime environment - and ensuring that the region's strategic importance delivers tangible economic resilience and high-value jobs to its coastal communities.

ENERGY AND NET ZERO TRANSITION

The Irish Sea is rapidly establishing itself as a global epicentre for net-zero transition. The region is a major hub for renewable energy, with an ambitious portfolio of pioneering tidal energy projects. This includes the multi-billion-pound Mersey Tidal Power Scheme, which could power up to one million homes. Bolstered by a robust network of subsea electricity interconnectors and a long-established nuclear base, the region is uniquely equipped to meet the unprecedented energy demands of the digital age, including the rise of AI and data centres.

This energy revolution requires more than just infrastructure; it needs strategic coordination. The Irish Sea Rim helps overcome practical barriers to the energy transition by brokering and bridging relationships across regions and industries. In doing this we help catalyse large scale cross-border infrastructure projects like tidal barrages, helping to de-risk investment and accelerate timelines. Critically, the Irish Sea Rim supports innovative and resilient supply chains by linking clusters and assets, such as shipbuilding in Scotland with project needs in Wales. This matchmaking function saves time and money and helps to distribute the benefits of multi-billion-pound energy investments to the communities and businesses of the Irish Sea.

LIFE SCIENCES

The Irish Sea region hosts globally significant innovation clusters, including life sciences, combining world-leading research with industrial power, including the Liverpool - Manchester corridor, Ireland's base for nine of the top ten international pharmaceutical companies, hubs in Wales and Scotland and the UK's third fastest-growing life sciences sector in the South West of England. An unparalleled cross-border potential underpins the region’s international reputation and influence.

The Irish Sea Rim has a vital role to play in bridging industry, academia, and place across national borders to maximise the translation of groundbreaking research into tangible economic and health impacts. We help create a unified ecosystem to tackle shared challenges and seize investment opportunities. Our place-based approach helps ensure the benefits of this high-growth sector contribute to connected prosperity for all communities.

DIGITAL AND DATA ECONOMY

BLUE / GREEN REGENERATION

The Irish Sea region is undergoing a profound blue and green regeneration, with a dual focus on pioneering clean industry while enhancing community wellbeing. This is driven by a globally significant green industrial revolution which is powered by world-leading projects in offshore wind, tidal power, hydrogen, and transport decarbonisation.

This industrial ambition is matched by a wider commitment to enhancing social and environmental prosperity. Nations like Scotland and Wales are explicitly adopting a wellbeing economy model while city regions are investing heavily in public health and community connection by building extensive new networks for active travel. This is underpinned by a deep-rooted focus on environmental stewardship, including cross-border collaboration to protect the sea's rich biodiversity and Marine Conservation Zones.

At the Irish Sea Rim, our vision is driven by our commitment to shape a more prosperous and sustainable future by creating ambitious, future-facing strategies and projects designed to deliver inclusive economic growth, societal benefit, and environmental sustainability.

Through our Connecting Places programme, we unite government, industry, and academia with place to deliver growth alongside clean, green wellbeing.

With the Irish Sea Rim Cycle Race, we combine an elite, six-nation sporting event with a touring business expo, designed to drive investment directly into coastal high streets and promote active lifestyles. Furthermore, we propose to lead the creation of the Irish Sea Rim Environmental and Scientific Observatory (ISRESO), a major scientific project to provide the data needed to guide sustainable development across the region.

CONNECTING PLACES PROGRAMME

A key goal of the Irish Sea Rim is to connect the region’s nations, businesses, academic institutions and distinctive high-growth innovation clusters and world-leading assets with places, to harness the wider strength of these places, and catalysing growth and investment in clean, green and wellbeing-focused innovation that benefits all. To realise the full potential of the Irish Sea region, place must have a central role and equal voice in supporting connected innovation, testing and driving place-specific economic, social and environmental impact.

As places change, communities must have a voice in the decisions and impacts that will define success. Engagement and co-production are key to harnessing community voice meaningfully, enabled by time, social infrastructure and expertise. Through the Connecting Places programme, the Irish Sea Rim will lead the way, building the infrastructure for long-term community voice, engagement and co-production. We will drive the place animation, visibility and storytelling of this landmark initiative to integrate innovation with the people and places which define and connect the Irish Sea.

IRISH SEA RIM CYCLE RACE AND BUSINESS EXPO

The Irish Sea Rim Cycle Race & Business Expo is a landmark initiative designed to be the living embodiment of the entire Irish Sea Rim vision. For the first time, this pioneering, two-week international series of elite cycling events will connect the region's six nations through a single, highly visible narrative of collaboration and shared ambition. It moves far beyond a traditional sporting event by uniquely blending elite cycling with a touring business expo and cultural festival, creating a unique vehicle for profound economic, environmental, and social development.

The Cycle Race aligns with our core mission to connect, bridge, and amplify opportunities across borders, catalysing a new model of regenerative growth and forging a cohesive identity for a region of immense untapped potential.

ROADMAP TO TRANSFORMATION

The Irish Sea Rim is essentially a practical delivery vehicle for innovation at scale across the Irish Sea region, breaking down barriers and catalysing cross-border collaboration. This is our roadmap for establishing the Irish Sea Rim, developing pilot initiatives, and contributing to major place-based initiatives. This roadmap is a live plan and will be contingent upon establishing a sustainable funding base and on stakeholder opportunities and priorities.