Once the poster child of the UK's industrial decline, Sheffield's recession-defying growth in recent years has been based around the city and surrounding region using its past as a steelmaking and mining centre to embrace more modern technology, all backed up by training programmes supplying a steady stream of engineering talent.

The Advanced Manufacturing Park, or AMP, located just outside Sheffield has attracted myriad leading names in the metals industry since its opening in the mid-1990s, maintaining the region's reputation as a global leader in this sector.

Derby has a history of innovation dating back to the industrial revolution, a mindset that continues to serve it well into the digital age. Local authorities – keen to make the city somewhere to live as well as work – have spent the past few years improving Derby's leisure offering, all of which is enabling the city to continue to punch above its weight.

Nichi Vendola, the president of Italy’s Apulia region, tells fDi about the incentives that are in place to attract investors and help the region to defy the recession that is afflicting the rest of Italy.

The UK's manufacturing decline of recent years seems to have bypassed Derby, which has met the challenge of low-cost competitors in the developing world by focusing upon quality.

Derby's industrial excellence has never quite been reflected in its city centre's offering. However, a flurry of new office developments – as well as a resurgence of the city's residential market – look set to change all of that.

Though Derby may appear small when compared with other business hubs in the UK and Europe, this works to the city's advantage, as its business community is welcoming, interlinked and possesses a real zeal to move the city forward.

Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone covers three sites along the M1 motorway, with each site catering  for different business types. This, the chairman of Sheffield City Region’s LEP tells fDi, gives the zone an edge over its UK counterparts