Every region wants to attract investment, create better jobs and increase productivity, but the difficult question is where to concentrate limited resources.
Trying to support every possible sector equally may appear inclusive, but it can prevent a place from building the depth of capability needed to compete nationally and internationally.
Neath Port Talbot should be confident about the strengths that make it distinctive.
The area has a significant industrial base, a globally recognised steelmaking location, access to ports and energy opportunities, established manufacturers and strong connections to universities and colleges.
These are not abstract advantages. Together, they provide the foundations for focused development around lower-carbon industry, advanced manufacturing, materials, energy and engineering.
Place-based economic development should start with evidence. It should identify where businesses, research capability, skills and infrastructure already reinforce one another and where targeted intervention could produce the greatest additional value.
This does not mean ignoring other parts of the economy. Nor does it mean attempting to choose individual commercial winners.
It means recognising that genuine clusters are built through depth: specialist knowledge, experienced people, capable suppliers, suitable sites and institutions that understand the sector.
Neath Port Talbot has an opportunity to build that depth around its industrial transition.
The move towards electric-arc steelmaking, the Celtic Freeport and potential growth in renewable energy create the possibility of attracting businesses that value lower-carbon materials, industrial expertise and proximity to major infrastructure.
But these opportunities must be developed commercially. A cluster cannot be created simply by applying a label to a group of activities.
We need evidence of customer demand, supply-chain capability and the barriers preventing businesses from investing. We need appropriate sites, reliable energy and training connected to credible employment opportunities.
Universities can help build this evidence and capability.
Our contribution should not be measured only by research income, academic publications or the number of companies created. Those measures matter, but they do not provide a complete account of regional impact.
We must also ask whether our knowledge, facilities and graduates are helping businesses in Neath Port Talbot become more productive, develop new technologies and compete in larger markets.
Universities can convene relationships that individual companies may struggle to establish alone. They can connect local firms with specialist research, national programmes and international partners. They can help test whether an emerging opportunity has a strong technical and commercial basis.
But engagement must be accessible. An SME with a production challenge needs a clear route to the relevant expertise, not a complicated journey through institutional structures.
Talent is another central issue.
Neath Port Talbot needs pathways that allow local people to develop higher-level skills while attracting expertise from elsewhere. A competitive industrial economy requires both. The objective should be to expand opportunity for existing communities while ensuring that businesses can recruit the people they need to succeed.
This means creating visible links between education and employment. Students and researchers should understand the careers available in local industry, while businesses should be able to influence training and access graduate talent.
Economic strategy must also be sustained. Building an internationally credible strength takes longer than a short funding programme or political cycle. Businesses invest when they believe that infrastructure, policy and institutional support will remain consistent.
Neath Port Talbot should therefore identify a focused set of economic strengths and commit to developing them over the long term. Progress should be measured through investment secured, businesses grown, technologies commercialised and good jobs created.
The area should not attempt to imitate every successful region. Its strongest proposition lies in combining capabilities that are authentically rooted in its own economy.
Steel, energy, manufacturing, research and skills can form the basis of a distinctive new chapter for Neath Port Talbot.
The task now is to invest consistently enough, and connect those strengths effectively enough, to make that proposition real.
