So Science City York (SCY) is just about creating businesses stacked full of brainy boffins, eh? Well, not really!

We certainly do need top quality brains in our scientists and technologists but Science City was always expected to be much, much more than that.

Right from the start, it has been appreciated that a well-integrated Science City both generates new ideas and also supports opportunities for them to be exploited.

So, in SCY, the Bioscience & Healthcare and the Information Technology & Digital clusters are obviously Science and Technology (S&T) based. But it is less clear, at first glance, how the Creative York cluster fits into the mould.

No competitive business can be aloof to the use of modern technology, whether it is in computers, communications, security or healthcare provision for its staff. But there are also many other businesses that, while not creators of new S&T, can be enthusiastic and effective users of it.

The Continuum Group, one of Europe's leading providers of creative solutions for the leisure, tourism and heritage industries, has achieved success through offering the full range of services needed to design, build, operate and successfully market attractions and exhibitions, many involving cutting edge interactive multimedia.

Its clients include - or have included - the British Museum, the National Trust, English Heritage, JORVIK, The Deep (Hull), Castle Howard, the World Bank and the European Union.

As well as operating and marketing attractions on behalf of clients it also has four of its own attractions: the Oxford Story; the Canterbury Tales; the Real Mary King's Close (Edinburgh); and the recently opened Spinnaker Tower at Gunwharf Quay, Portsmouth.

It is exciting to know that world-class, technology-based attractions are pioneered across Europe from Continuum's base, here in York.

Something rather different is presented by Aesthetica, a literary and arts magazine that promotes new writers, artists and musicians. It was founded only three years ago by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley, two students at the College of York St John.

Now, thanks in part to support from SCY business development manager Carolyn Randall, Aesthetica is being distributed nationally through Borders bookshops and is said to be the fastest growing literary and arts magazine in the UK.

Businesses that would not immediately be identified with Science City are included in the York Consortium for Conservation and Craftsmanship (YCCC).

This group has almost 100 members representing the lifeblood of York as an historic city with its many requirements for high-tech skills in traditional crafts.

These range from stained glass and masonry through to steam engines and historic aircraft. So York's Science City has both breadth

and depth, which is a good platform for long-term,

sustainable development.

There is a three-way relationship between true S&T businesses - those firms that use and exploit high-tech,

and the beneficial interaction of these groups with other components of the economy.

This highlights the essential interdependency between businesses from different

sectors and, as pointed out by Evening Press business editor Ron Godfrey on October 24, Creative York is central to this process as our most rapidly growing cluster, comprising almost 60 organisations.

Many of these will be on show tomorrow in the Merchant Adventurers' Hall at the second Creative York Symposium to show how they exploit the latest S&T opportunities and how York operates as an integrated Science City.

Updated: 11:20 Wednesday, November 02, 2005