Research themes
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) is home to a number of cross-disciplinary research agendas and themes.
MIOIR's research is organised around five interconnected themes, spanning how organisations innovate, how policy shapes science and technology, how innovation plays out across places, how whole systems transition toward sustainability, and how we govern emerging technologies responsibly. Together, they tackle the major challenges of our time - from sustainability and productivity to inequality and digital transformation.
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How can organisations innovate and thrive in a rapidly changing world?
Innovation is about more than new technology. It involves combining new products, services, business models and ways of working to create value and respond to changing markets. As organisations face growing pressures from digital transformation, global competition and economic uncertainty, understanding how innovation succeeds has never been more important.
Our research explores how organisations develop and manage innovation, from research and development (R&D) and business model innovation to creativity, design and collaboration across innovation ecosystems. We study how firms adapt to disruption and build competitive advantage across sectors including healthcare, biotechnology, defence, services and the creative industries.
By generating insights into how innovation happens in practice, our work helps organisations improve performance, strengthen resilience and navigate future challenges. It also informs policies that support innovation-led growth and competitiveness.
How can policy create the conditions for scientific and technological progress?
Scientific discovery and innovation depend on more than great ideas. They are shaped by funding systems, institutions, regulations and policy choices that influence what knowledge is created, how innovation develops and who benefits from it. Designing effective policies for science and innovation is a major challenge in an increasingly complex world.
We study how governments, public organisations and research institutions support science, technology and innovation. Our research investigates innovation policy, public procurement, mission-oriented programmes, research funding systems and the role of universities in shaping innovation.
Our findings help policymakers build stronger innovation systems, make better use of public investment and develop evidence-based responses to societal challenges. Ultimately, this research helps ensure that science and innovation deliver meaningful public value.
Why does innovation happen in some places more than others?
Innovation and economic opportunity are unevenly distributed. While some regions become centres of investment and growth, others face challenges linked to productivity, prosperity and access to opportunities. Understanding these differences is essential for creating more inclusive and resilient economies.
Drawing on economic geography, regional studies and public policy, we examine how place shapes innovation and how innovation shapes place. Our research investigates innovation ecosystems, industrial strategies, regional resilience, the role of universities and new models of urban innovation, including innovation districts and clusters.
This work helps policymakers, communities and organisations develop place-based approaches that unlock local strengths, reduce inequalities and support sustainable economic development across cities and regions.
How can societies transition towards more sustainable futures?
Tackling challenges like climate change means more than developing green technology; it means transforming entire systems of production, supply and consumption, often against entrenched interests and infrastructure built for a different era. These transitions are complex, slow, and easy to get wrong.
Our research investigates how large-scale socio-technical systems evolve and transform over time. We study sustainability transitions in areas such as energy, mobility, food systems, global value chains and digital platforms, exploring how technologies, policies, institutions and social practices interact to shape change.
By mapping how sustainable transitions actually unfold, our research helps industry, investors and policymakers make transitions happen faster and more fairly.
How can we harness emerging technologies responsibly?
New technologies from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology to quantum computing create enormous opportunity, but also real risk if their development outpaces our understanding of their consequences. Decisions made early in a technology's life can shape its impact on society for decades.
We study how new scientific knowledge and technologies emerge, develop and diffuse into the economy, spanning fields such as AI, nanotechnology, novel materials like graphene, additive manufacturing and synthetic biology. Beyond tracking these trajectories, we focus on responsible innovation — how organisations and governments can guide emerging technologies towards beneficial outcomes and manage them responsibly as they mature.
This work supports policymakers, technologists and organisations in steering powerful new technologies toward outcomes that benefit society, rather than simply reacting after the fact.
Impact and engagement
Our research shapes innovation strategy and policy across public and private sectors - from supporting SMEs navigating digital transformation and helping firms and ecosystems adapt to disruption, to informing science and innovation policy design, public procurement and mission-oriented strategy.
It underpins place-based and regional policy aimed at addressing regional inequality, contributes to the governance of sustainability transitions across energy, food and supply chains, and informs the responsible development and regulation of emerging technologies such as AI and synthetic biology.
Together, this work has shaped multiple REF impact case studies and is regularly cited in policy and industry reports across the UK and internationally.