Life Sciences and Health in South West Wales: A Sub-regional Innovation Ecosystem

South Wales has been nurturing a nascent Life Sciences cluster through initiatives including the Institute of Life Science (ILS) at Swansea University Medical School. ILS aims to provide an entrepreneurial learning environment transcending industry, health care, academia and further education. This chapter describes how efforts to develop the sector have been undertaken through structured efforts of Understanding, Acting and Measuring, resulting in new ventures formed through spin-outs to commercialise research output and collaboration with other enterprises. Building upon concepts of clustering and regional innovation systems, the approach demonstrates the harnessing of a long-term strategy involving smart specialisation resulting in emerging and meaningful economic impact. Networking and knowledge exchange are shown as core components of a system reaching across wider sectors involving a diversity of skills. The conclusions demonstrate how entrepreneurial learning has also helped develop further actions including Talent Bank in support of the region’s broader ambition of A Regional Collaboration for Health.