County is a hotbed of cryogenics research

Oxfordshire is the global leader in cryogenics – the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures –with the most powerful concentration of cryogenic expertise in the world. This is a critical enabling technology that underpins high value manufacturing and engineering across a broad range of sectors.

The Oxfordshire cryogenics cluster includes Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell Campus, which pioneered the development of a multifilament superconducting cable known as the Rutherford Cable. This is a key technology for superconducting accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

comprises more than 90 space organisations employing nearly 1,000 people and is the largest space cluster in Europe, incorporating the European Space Agency, the Space Applications Catapult and the National Satellite Testing Facility.

And in manufacturing, Motorsport Valley extends from Northamptonshire into Oxfordshire – more of this later.

Meanwhile, the county has the highest intensity of university spin out companies in the UK. The University of Oxford continues to generate more spinouts than any other university nationally. Between 2014 and 2015, a total of 136 spin-out companies generated approximately £147 million of GVA, supporting 2,421 jobs in the Oxfordshire economy. On a per-head basis, the output of local workers is in the top 20 percent of English regions.