The Irish Sea Rim combines an ambitious strategic vision to create a unique, cross-cutting transnational innovation supercluster, with bespoke delivery frameworks designed to harness and leverage the complexity and potential of the Irish Sea region. The leadership team comprises experts in innovation superclusters, research and innovation ecosystem development, place-based regeneration, and digital platform development. This section outlines our ISR50 Strategic Vision, and our 2-year action roadmap to establish the Irish Sea Rim and support regional rebalancing and connected prosperity across key sectors, including Maritime and Green Shipping, Digital and Data Economy, and Energy and Net Zero Transition.
ISR50: A DIGITALLY ENHANCED HUMAN ECOSYSTEM
We are proposing a bold strategic vision – the Irish Sea Rim 2050 (ISR50) Spherical Economy – to enable us to fully leverage and deliver on the economic, societal and environmental potential of the Irish Sea Rim Investment, Innovation, and Enterprise Zone. ISR50 is a multi-dimensional innovative and sustainable solution-led, digitally enhanced human ecosystem for developing economic growth and social cohesion (Figure 2.1). It provides a values-and purpose-led collaborative and open-innovative approach to integrating what has been achieved in the circular economy into wider accessibility and global impact.
ISR50 is designed to work at all levels and regions of the innovation ecosystem, with a 360-degree design accessible from any starting point or level. It is open to all and includes entrepreneurial small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), industries, funding councils, innovation agencies, people and communities, regions and counties, developing countries and continents. It has been created in part to fill gaps and create behavioural change in the current post-Brexit innovation landscape, ‘join the dots’ between business services, supply chains, and places, address socio-economic inequalities, and improve access to opportunities for under-served communities.
HOW THE ISR50 WILL WORK
The Irish Sea Rim acts as an umbrella organisation, working in partnership with governments, businesses, academia, and places to further the economic, societal, and environmental interests of the whole Irish Sea region. Our aim is to connect, bridge, and amplify existing organisations and projects, as well as catalyse new innovations. Our 10-year strategic vision is outlined in Figure 2.2.
Figure 2.2 The Irish Sea Rim 2026-2035 Strategic Vision:
We will deliver this vision in a number of ways, including (Figure 2.3):
- ECONOMIC ENGINE
- Developing centres of excellence for innovation and enterprise in cities around the Irish Sea Rim.
- Determining new and innovative market opportunities using advanced data analytics.
- Enabling trading connectivity to ensure new and existing market sustainability.
- Integrating networks from every sector, exploring synergies and creating mutually beneficial relationships leading to growth, job creation, and skills transfer.
- Supporting needs- and evidence-based regional investment and sustainable development in under-represented communities across the Irish Sea region.
- Engaging and supporting people at all levels of the Spherical Economy, co-producing with places, communities and stakeholders across the quadruple helix to level the playing field.
- Developing a relevant and future-proofed innovative value proposition.
ECONOMIC ENGINES
The ISR50 Spherical Economy Strategic Vision will be realised through a unique Operational Framework, designed to embrace the complexity of the region and create a thriving, innovation supercluster across the Irish Sea Rim (Section 21). It will enable us to build multi-partner collaborations, identify and harness critical leverage points for intervention, and create powerful feedback loops into place, policy, and strategy. This framework offers a fundamentally different approach to growing innovation, and is designed to support holistic, integrated, self-organising, and scalable ecosystems. The operational framework is organised into three main priorities: Optimising Conditions, Catalysing Innovation, and Driving Impact (Figure 2.4).
Delivery of Irish Sea Rim operations and the ISR50 Spherical Economy will be achieved via three main strands: the unique iterative Cresswell-Leigh Bridge Framework for regional development (Section 21), which will provide the vehicle for place-based engagement, co-production, and delivery, and of the Irish Sea Rim as a whole. The Bridge Framework will be supported by comprehensive mapping project (Section 25) and a bespoke Digital Membership Platform (Section 26).
DELIVERING THE IRISH SEA RIM
Sections 23-27 outline the plans and pilot projects for establishing and delivering on the ISR50 Strategic Vision and the aims and priorities of key stakeholders and partners across the quadruple helix. Figure 2.5 outlines the key deliverables and place-based projects on which the Irish Sea Rim will focus in the first 2-3 years. Projects will be contingent upon funding, and we will work closely with key stakeholders and partners to co-produce and co-deliver these initiatives.
The Irish Sea Rim sustainable funding model is outlined in Section 28, and comprises a distributed range of funding sources, from core seed funding to place-based infrastructure project funding, consultancy, CPD, and a recurrent membership model. The roadmap from seed funding to sustainability is given in Figure 2.6.
Dublin and bridge over river Liffey. Image Credit: Irish Sea Rim