YORK'S strengths in the science and technology sectors are set to bolstered further after the city was announced as a location for one of six new Next Generation Digital Economy Centres in the UK.

Chancellor George Osborne's budget on Wednesday revealed the Government will release £45 million of funding to support innovation throughout the country.

A total of £23 million will be invested in the Digital Economy Centre, which will also be cited in London, Swansea Newcastle, Nottingham and Bath, with £22 million of additional funding leveraged through partnering with LEPs, regional councils, and local SMEs.

The chancellor said these centres will exploit opportunities across sectors of the digital economy including the creative industries, finance, healthcare and education.

York's centre is due to be located at the University of York, with further information due to be announced next week by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which is providing the funding.

The University of York has previously received several pots of money from the EPSRC for digital economy work, including £5.59 million for the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in intelligent games and game intelligence and £1.16 million for new economic models and opportunities for digital games, both programmes led by Prof Peter Cowling in the University's Computer Science department.

The digital economy centres will be home to PhD-level research relating to the digital economy and is focused on real-world applications, which the EPSRC described as how to "connect people with digital technology to radically improve the way we live, work, play, and travel".