How West Midlands Combined Authority uses The Data City to power its innovation strategy

Accessing granular, day-to-day information about individual businesses is a common challenge for organisations like WMCA, for example, knowing who is likely to attend an event, or verifying claims made about a company raised in a meeting or report. Platforms like The Data City’s Industry Engine help overcome this, making that level of detail easy to access.

At a larger scale, understanding clusters, communities of businesses, and the spatial density of activity across sectors was difficult without dedicated business databases. Without this, the team often found itself limited to working with familiar businesses it already knew, rather than the wider pool of innovative companies operating across the region.

WMCA has used The Data City across several major projects. The most significant has been the Local Innovation Partnership Fund, a UKRI initiative allocating £500 million to place-based research, development and innovation. Combined authorities were required to submit a readiness check setting out their strategic approach, including the sectors and clusters they intended to focus on. The team used The Data City to build the evidence base for that submission. This included maps showing who the relevant businesses were, where they were located, and the distinctive characteristics of clusters in sectors such as creative industries, manufacturing and health.

The platform is also used at the level of individual firms, helping the team identify companies to invite to apply for funding or to join networks and events. Day to day, it supports fast factchecking whenever a company is raised in a meeting or mentioned by a senior stakeholder, a task Steven describes as typically taking three or four clicks. The team also runs aggregate reports, for example to understand how many businesses are active in each sector, such as life sciences.

The evidence base built through The Data City played a central role in securing central government agreement on WMCA’s innovation strategy under the Local Innovation Partnership Fund, with the submission independently assessed by peer reviewers including academics.

The platform has also broadened the range of businesses WMCA engages with beyond those it already knew, surfacing innovative companies for outreach, funding invitations, and network and event participation.

Day to day, The Data City has made it faster and easier for the team to verify information. It brings together metrics that would otherwise need to be pieced together manually, helping the team respond confidently when businesses are raised by senior stakeholders. Steven also highlights the consistency of support from The Data City team, from onboarding through to ongoing queries, as a key part of the experience.