A delegation from Gdańsk and the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area carried out an economic mission to Belfast on April 17-18. Ten meetings with key institutions of Northern Ireland’s innovation ecosystem led to one sentence that was repeated in almost every conversation: “We are too small not to collaborate with each other.”

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Why Belfast?

The choice of Belfast was no coincidence. Gdańsk and the capital of Northern Ireland share more than might seem at first glance. Both cities grew on the shipbuilding industry. Belfast as the home of the Harland & Wolff shipyard, Gdańsk as the cradle of Solidarity and democratic transformation. Both underwent profound economic transitions: Belfast after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and Gdańsk after the fall of communism in 1989.

Today, both cities focus on the knowledge economy, digital technologies, and innovation. They operate from the position of mid-sized regions that must act faster, in a model based more on collaboration than on the competition typical of major capitals. In the FT fDi European Cities and Regions of the Future 2025 ranking, in the category of foreign direct investment strategy for mid-sized regions, Northern Ireland ranked first in Europe, while Pomerania placed third. Their proximity in this ranking became a pretext to explore whether it could evolve into a partnership.

Belfast, however, has an advantage that Gdańsk aims to learn from. It is a more mature innovation ecosystem, where the city, two research universities, an investment agency, a startup hub, and the private sector operate within a single formal platform - Innovation City Belfast.

The mission step by step

The delegation was led by Deputy Mayor of Gdańsk Piotr Grzelak. The delegation included: Paweł Orłowski (CEO of InvestGDA), Michał Glaser (CEO of the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area), Magdalena Wójtowicz (CEO of Starter Incubator), Marcin Marciniak (Dean at the University of Gdańsk), Tomasz Nadolny (Head of Economy and Digitalisation at the Metropolitan Office), Mateusz Prawda (InvestGDA), and Arek Kwoska (CEO of Rebels Valley).

The programme included ten meetings with institutions representing the full spectrum of Belfast’s innovation ecosystem.

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Invest Northern Ireland: the regional economic development agency, which in 2024/25 handled investments worth £631 million and attracted 19 new foreign investors. The delegation learned about investment attraction mechanisms, incentive structures, and the Assured Skills programme - training “tailor-made” for a specific investor.

Ormeau Labs: a privately funded startup hub located in a historic former public baths building, running a six-month Founder Labs accelerator in cooperation with Dogpatch Labs (Dublin) and Queen’s University.

Momentum One Zero: the flagship digital innovation centre of Queen’s University Belfast (£70 million budget), bringing together over 550 researchers in cybersecurity, AI, medtech, and space technologies. One of the most important substantive meetings of the mission.

Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC): an advanced manufacturing centre at Queen’s University (£100 million budget), with a planned “Factory of the Future.” A meeting with Robert Hill, manager of the Northern Ireland Space Cluster and chair of the MATRIX advisory panel, opened discussions on dual-use technologies and the space sector.

Department for the Economy - a meeting with the Northern Ireland Economy Minister in Belfast, concluding the first day of a very intensive programme.

The delegation also met - as part of the MATRIX expert panel - with business and academic leaders forming a dedicated technology foresight group advising the Northern Ireland government. This cooperation model will serve as a reference point for the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolis.

On Friday, a series of presentations and sessions took place at Kainos - a Belfast-based technology company with revenues of nearly £500 million and a leader in the digital transformation of public services in the UK. Kainos has also been present in Gdańsk for several years, creating hundreds of jobs for IT professionals. Three sessions covered the EAYL dual education programme, a case study of implementations for the city of Helsinki, and lessons from large-scale public-sector IT projects.

The delegation also met with Software NI - an industry organisation representing Northern Ireland’s £1.7 billion software sector. Later that day, at Ulster University, the group met with Tim Brundle, Director of Research and Commercialisation and head of Innovation Ulster Ltd - a company that has created over 40 spin-offs and secured more than £400 million in funding. The Gdańsk group also visited AICC - an artificial intelligence centre jointly operated by Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast (£16.3 million budget), which supports hundreds of companies in implementing AI solutions, led by experienced innovation manager David Crozier CBE.

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“Too small not to collaborate”

The main theme of the mission emerged from the discussions. Belfast and Gdańsk are regions that do not have the scale of London, Berlin, or Warsaw. Precisely because of this, their advantage lies in the ability to quickly build relationships between the public sector, universities, and business. In Belfast, this philosophy takes a concrete form. Innovation City Belfast is a platform where the city, the port, two universities, a startup hub, a vocational college, and an investment agency sit at one table. People move fluidly between institutions. For the Gdańsk delegation, this was both inspiring and motivating. The Tricity already has all the necessary elements: universities, technology companies, a port, and support agencies. What is missing, however, is a cooperation mechanism that would connect them into a single, collaborative ecosystem. Belfast demonstrated how to achieve this and pointed to a strong direction for the future.
The mission was not a one-off study visit. It marks the beginning of a relationship expected to deliver concrete results.