Why are Liverpool and Oxford teaming up in a deal?

They are world-famous cities; Liverpool best known for its sport, music and industrial history, while Oxford has held academic prestige for centuries.

But universities and authorities in both cities have now signed a deal to retain talent and business in the UK.

Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram says a new memorandum will see the two collaborate in areas like technology, and will see Merseyside attract more jobs "to ensure all of that value is retained within UK PLC".

"Oxford can't currently cope with the demand so we're going to provide even more capacity for them, so that excellent start-up businesses can start to grow in the UK," he told BBC North West Tonight.

"If they in Oxford can't accommodate some of those businesses that start up through their university - or some of the businesses that spin out or want to scale up - they will come to the Liverpool City Region and we'll accommodate them."

Professor Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor at the University of Oxford, says the relationship will develop prosperity, science and innovation in both regions, including vaccine development, infection control, neuroscience and women's health.

She adds it will help firms to "start, stay and scale-up in the UK".

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."

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