Inclusive innovation fails in Cambridge not because of a lack of intent or activity, but because of a governance failure: interdependent actors need to coordinate around shared objectives.
Cambridge is a world-leading innovation ecosystem — but its success isn’t shared evenly. Exclusion here isn’t accidental. It is shaped by informal networks, opaque decision-making and fragmented pathways across access, skills, capital, governance and value capture.
Market-led fixes won’t work. Neither will top-down mandates. What Cambridge needs is coordination without centralisation: shared indicators, real transparency, clearer decision-making, demand-led skills signalling, and better measures of local value capture — without creating new bureaucracy.
Inclusion isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s what makes innovation ecosystems resilient. Cambridge has a narrow window to act before these inequalities harden into permanent structure.
Read the blog: The missing layer: why Cambridge’s innovation ecosystem needs coordination, not control
