Why are Liverpool and Oxford teaming up in a deal?

Both regions host supercomputers at Daresbury, near Liverpool and Harwell, near Oxford, which will collaborate as part of the deal.

It will contribute to Rotheram’s ambition to double annual investment in research and development (R&D) in his region to £2bn by 2030.

He believes it could create an extra 40,000 roles, including “really high-powered, high-class, highly paid jobs into the ecosystem in the Liverpool City Region, instead of it going into Oxford and Cambridge”.

“We already have some brilliant universities in the Liverpool City Region but what we’re going to do is to ensure that we keep more of those clever people who have the skills and the qualifications that we need as a city region but as a country also.”

Rotheram adds: “It means that we can regain some of the preeminence that we once had because our area has always been the engine of change.

“The River Mersey is the lifeblood of the first industrial revolution and I want us to be the lifeblood of the third and the fourth industrial revolutions.”