DRIVEN BY LANCASTER UNIVERSITY,

ONE OF THE UK'S TOP 12 LEADING RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES,

THE
CITY AREA IS A WORLD CLASS CENTRE FOR SOFTWARE,

INTERNET AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY.

• Global business partners such as Microsoft, Cisco, BAE Systems and Nokia are capitalising on Lancaster's strong reputation for innovatively marrying academic and commercial initiatives.
• Lancaster University's InfoLab21 houses the internationally renowned computing and communication systems departments together with quality, cost-effective incubation space for hi-tech businesses.
• Home to the largest rural broadband network in Europe, Lancaster is the only UK University that holds a Telco licence in its own right.
• The Cumbria and Lancashire Knowledge Economy Initiative run by Lancaster University provides ICT support to SMEs in the Northwest. The Business Enterprise Centre makes the University's vast knowledge base accessible to the business world.
• Spin-off companies have a choice of high quality premises, including the City's prestigious CityLab development and quality business parks close to the M6.
• Lancaster University provides high speed (24 Megabit) broadband provision for its internal network and plans to extend this to the rest of the Lancaster area. This is significantly faster than BT and is in IP rather than ATM mode. There is also a proposal to provide a fast dark fibre (10 Gigabit) broadband line through the city.
• The business-led Lancaster ICT Cluster Group has over 70 members and holds regular meetings at InfoLab21 and CityLab.