Innovation Accelerator Governance

The West Midlands Innovation Board (WMIB) provides regional leadership and governance from public, private and academic sectors. The WMIB reports, and is accountable to, the West Midlands Economic Growth Board.

The WMIB is supported by the WMCA policy and delivery team who provide the liaison with Innovate UK, BEIS and other relevant Government bodies.

The Innovation Board’s role is to knit together two agendas:

• Setting a focus of the Innovation Accelerator given the region’s economic opportunities set out in the West Midlands Plan for Growth. This means using our engineering heritage and knowledge of commercial opportunities and societal impact to grow emerging R&D strengths with strong commercial potential.
• Ensure the Innovation Accelerator is supported by complementary regional and national activities. This includes the breadth of issues across the region’s Innovation Framework which covers business support programmes to catalyse the diffusion and adoption of innovation; interventions to upskill and reskill cohorts of workers; ensuring an appropriate supply of risk capital and that businesses are investment ready; ensuring appropriate supply of sites with the digital, energy and transport connectivity for firms to grow, and an internationalisation offer that helps firms trade and attracts foreign direct investment to catalyse local supply chains.