The UK Innovation Corridor’s Universities Group has taken its developing agritech collaboration from first conversation to operational programme in under a year, linking the Corridor with its counterpart in São Paulo State ahead of a launch event this autumn.
The Universities Group met on 1 July with its most ambitious project firmly in delivery mode. The Agritech Working Group, which began last autumn as an exploratory conversation about a possible partnership with Brazil, is now up and running: terms of reference agreed, membership growing, and a launch event planned for autumn 2026.
At its centre is a partnership between two innovation corridors on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Working with Embrapa, the Brazilian agricultural research corporation at the heart of São Paulo State’s Agritech Innovation Corridor, the programme has grown well beyond its original scope. It now supports research, innovation, skills, inward investment and international partnerships across the Corridor’s whole geography, from London through Hertfordshire and Essex to Cambridge and Peterborough.
Early priorities include innovation challenges, digital twinning, vertical farming and rural innovation, and the programme brings further education into the picture through partners including Writtle and Capel Manor.
The Corridor’s universities are already putting resources behind it. Anglia Ruskin University is investing in agritech, including a new vertical farming facility, and has created a dedicated partnerships team. Middlesex University will explore digital twinning applications, and the University of East London is connecting its Sustainable Resources Institute and related expertise into the programme.
Members also agreed to look beyond agritech. Defence and dual-use technologies, cyber security, artificial intelligence in the public sector, and health technologies and life sciences were all identified as future collaboration themes, with the Group acting as the forum where expertise is connected and new projects take shape.
A shared directory of university expertise will underpin that ambition. First proposed within the Group last autumn as a way of mapping the Corridor’s research assets, the directory will make it easier for businesses, investors and public partners to find the right expertise in the right institution.
The Corridor’s international profile is growing too. Alongside the Embrapa relationship, members discussed interest from international investors and emerging links with Qingdao in China, where UCL is developing an innovation partnership as part of its expanding global engagement.
John McGill, Director of the UK Innovation Corridor, said:
“Universities are one of the Corridor’s defining assets. This geography has generated a quarter of England’s net new knowledge-intensive jobs since 2016, and our universities and colleges are central to that story.
Seeing them connect the Corridor to counterparts in São Paulo, in the year we mark our 15th anniversary, tells you exactly what this partnership is for. It is all about turning shared ambition into shared delivery.”
Next steps include the autumn launch event, completing the expertise directory and deepening links with further education colleges and international partners. The emphasis throughout is on enabling collaboration rather than duplicating national initiatives that already exist, meaning we can bring value to members and UK PLC.
