Plymouth itself is home to the UK’s first Marine Enterprise Zone at Oceansgate which is set to expand into the Freeport’s South Yard tax site. Located in Devonport, the Oceansgate development provides easy access to Smart Sound Plymouth for innovative businesses wishing to develop marine and defence capabilities. Smart Sound is a world-leading fully instrumented and managed marine innovation testbed covering 1000 sq km of ocean in and around Plymouth Sound.

The Freeport area benefits more broadly from the University of Plymouth which provides a centre of excellence for ground-breaking world-leading research and innovation, supporting academic-industry knowledge exchange across the Freeport’s target sectors of marine, defence, space, advanced manufacturing, engineering and net zero tech.

Further afield, the University of Exeter brings specific expertise for clean propulsion via the Centre for Future Clean Mobility (CFCM) based at Exeter Science Park . This facility provides state-of-the-art research, testing and proving assets to drive the development of alternative propulsion technologies in the marine and defence sectors. While in Torbay, the Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre provides facilities and support for emerging marine, defence and space technologies as well as other advanced manufacturing sectors.