Irish Sea Rim Operational Framework
The Irish Sea Rim is a complex, dynamic, interactive ecosystem of ideas, businesses, research institutions, clusters, industries, sectors, nations, policies, and socio-economic diversity. As such, it offers unparalleled opportunities for harnessing place-based innovation to create non-linear economic growth, social benefit, and a transformation in environmental sustainability.
A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO REGIONAL INNOVATION
Yet there are challenges in fully leveraging the opportunities which the Irish Sea Rim presents, including fragmentation within the innovation ecosystem, top-down management, concentration of investment and activity within the Greater South East of England, socio-economic inequalities, economic and political uncertainty, and skills shortages. To create a thriving, innovation “super cluster” across the diverse geographies, sectors, and stakeholders of the Irish Sea Rim, we are employing a systems thinking approach. This enables us to scale beyond isolated initiatives to create an interconnected Irish Sea Rim Investment, Innovation, and Enterprise Zone, which is greater than the sum of its parts which delivers non-linear growth and returns on investment.
By mapping the intricate relationships and feedback loops between policy, funding, research, industry needs, community, and environmental factors, we can identify critical "leverage points" for intervention in different regions and sectors. This holistic and values-led perspective enables us to design integrated strategies that foster sustainable innovation, anticipate unintended consequences, and build resilient, collaborative partnerships that leverage the collective strengths of the entire Irish Sea Rim for mutual prosperity and global impact.
IRISH SEA RIM STRATEGIC OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Through the ISR50 Spherical Economy Strategic Vision (Section 2), we propose a fundamentally different approach to promoting and growing innovation, which actively embraces the complexity of the Irish Sea Rim Investment, Innovation, and Enterprise Zone, bringing order to chaos, harnessing systems thinking, leveraging untapped innovation potential, and providing multiple feedback loops into policy and strategy development.
To create maximum strategic alignment, integration and impact, the Irish Sea Rim will work within a Strategic Operational Framework designed to support holistic and integrated self-organising, scalable innovation ecosystems. This will create a step-change in multi-layered, multi-regional, multi-sectoral innovation, sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and delivery of the individual and combined strategic priorities of the six countries within the Irish Sea Region. The Irish Sea Rim Strategic Operational Framework is divided into three main priorities: Optimising Conditions, Catalysing Innovation, and Driving Impact (Figure 22.2):
OPTIMISING CONDITIONS
For innovation ecosystems to thrive, they require supportive environments, optimised to their regional, place, and sectoral needs. We will work at all levels of the Irish Sea Rim ecosystem, and with all countries and cities, to co-create and co-design the optimal systemic and place-specific conditions and environments for innovation. This will pave the way for innovation and entrepreneurship to emerge and expand organically across the region and create sustainable, inclusive, economic growth, particularly in previously under-represented coastal communities around the Irish Sea[109].
STRATEGY, POLICY, AND FUNDING: Working across the quadruple helix we identify and support an effective and inclusive innovation policy and funding environment, mapped to national and sector priorities. We create feedback loops from placed, innovation ecosystems, and sectors to inform future policy and funding development.
COLLABORATION VS COMPETITION: Through intra-and inter-sectoral engagement, we help balance the transformative power of collaboration with the catalysing effect of healthy competition both nationally and internationally to drive, scale, and embed innovation in priority places and sectors.
SKILLS, TALENT, AND RESOURCES: We work across industries, sectors, and education institutions to create a critical mass of skills and entrepreneurship in key areas, connecting with deprived, or under-represented places to leverage skills development to create regenerative growth and shared prosperity.
TARGETED PLACE-BASED INVESTMENT: We will work with the quadruple helix of governments, businesses, academia, and places to identify strategic place-based investment needs and success measures. Where relevant, the Irish Sea Rim may operate as a conduit for targeted funding, working with innovation ecosystems and partners to ensure strategic deployment of funds and maximise return on investment.
CATALYSING INNOVATION
The Irish Sea Rim presents a powerful opportunity to identify, support, bridge, and catalyse innovation throughout the whole supercluster. The challenge with traditional innovation support is that it naturally focusses locally or regionally, and on specific sectors, potentially creating gaps and/or repetition. The unique advantages of the Irish Sea Rim are our political, sectoral, and regional independence, our ability to connect stakeholders across sectors and places, and our expansive reach throughout the whole region. This enables us to facilitate new connections and catalyse innovation at the intersection of different sectors, disciplines, or regions.
CONNECTING INNOVATION ECOSYSTEMS: The Irish Sea Rim acts as a bridge and relationship broker between nations, regions, sectors, disciplines, businesses, organisations, research and educational institutions, and places, supporting strategic interventions, facilitating ‘serendipitous’ interactions, and strengthening the pipeline for new talent and businesses. By connecting demand to supply, and simplifying access to critical services and investment, we can amplify inward investment into economies and societies.
CROSS-SECTOR COLLABORATION: We harness our networks to work across the Irish Sea Rim to bring together diverse perspectives and knowledge, promoting collaboration and the development of new innovations at the intersection of nations, sectors, industries, disciplines, research organisations, and places.
INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: The Irish Sea Rim has developed key academic partnerships and works with universities, businesses, and places to create new ways of translating research and innovation into real-world solutions, impacts, and skills. We facilitate and design networking events, knowledge exchange platforms, and conferences at sector, region, and national level to disseminate outcomes, promote new innovations, and generate ecosystem growth. The first annual Irish Sea Rim conference is planned for Autumn 2026.
COMMUNITY CO-PRODUCTION: We work across the quadruple helix to address the need for greater place and community involvement and co-production in regional and national decision-making, to address local needs effectively. We help connect problems with solutions, and opportunities with talent, to catalyse the identification, incubation, acceleration and scaling of new innovations and enterprises at the local level.
DRIVING IMPACT
The key to creating non-linear benefits throughout the Irish Sea Rim, is our ability to ‘close the loop’ between the policy and innovation environments by supporting integration at all levels of the innovation ecosystem and creating powerful relationships across the region. This will have three outcomes: enabling greater uptake, driving deeper impact, and creating on-the-ground feedback into the development of policy and funding schemes.
INWARD INVESTMENT AND JOB CREATION: We work at all levels within the innovation ecosystem to support measures to increase inward investment into the Irish Sea region, and prioritisation of the creation of long-term high-level and mid-level jobs that are geographically anchored to the region’s infrastructure, providing regenerative growth and stable employment for a wider section of the community.
MULTI-LEVEL ECOSYSTEM INTEGRATION: The Irish Sea Rim engenders a more inclusive and joined-up approach at the macro (national strategy and policy), meso (regional and sector), and local (innovation cluster, incubator, and entrepreneur) levels within the supercluster. Connection and integration between supply and demand and key services also create significant non-linear return on investment and stability of ecosystems, places, sectors, and markets.
STAKEHOLDER AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: Co-creation, co-design, and co-production with communities, stakeholders, and innovators at all levels is at the heart of the Irish Sea Rim’s way of working, managing complex stakeholder needs and priorities to build positive and productive relationships. By connecting community priorities and place activation with regional ecosystems and national strategies, we help drive sustainable and inclusive economic growth and societal benefit.
SKILLS TRANSFORMATION: We will work across the Irish Sea Rim to identify and address skills needs at both sector and community levels, partnering with communities, education organisations, businesses and local/regional authorities to support medium-and high-skill development in children and adults to fill gaps and build a stable pipeline of skills for the future.
The strategic ISR50 Operational Framework is designed to be dynamic and open, flexing and adapting to meet place and stakeholder needs, respond to strategic and other external developments, and evolve as the Irish Sea Rim matures and grows.