Happy Birthday CAM-SCI: what's changed in the last six years?
 CAM-SCI Consulting is celebrating its sixth anniversary working in the field of knowledge-economy development. Its strange name comes from its birth-place at the Cambridge Science Park where the team cut their teeth; and where over a ten year period, both mistakes and successes provided invaluable lessons that now benefit CAM-SCI’s clients across the UK and Internationally.CAM-SCI’s best-practice research programme since 2004 allows it to map changing trends in knowledge economy development. In the last few years, CAM-SCI has seen the emergence of the ‘medipark’ movement – already a strong feature of the USA economy but still at an early stage in the UK. Whilst University-linked developments remain strongly active, CAM-SCI are now also advising Hospital Trusts and medical centres wishing to exploit medical and translational research. One of CAM-SCI’s strongest markets is the development and operation of innovation centres – where they also see major trend changes. A core function of innovation centres is the support of innovation and entrepreneurship. However, CAM-SCI’s research shows that the high cost of providing meaningful business support and incubation services in-house, often heavily relies on availability of public funding. With the current squeeze on the public purse, it is likely that alternative solutions must be found. Perhaps the most obvious trend is that the UK is ever more reliant on knowledge-economy development for future wealth creation. To compete with international markets, our innovation centres, science parks, bioincubators and medi-parks must be commercially sustainable – whilst maintaining the vision to promote innovation and support knowledge-based companies. CAM-SCI offer pragmatic solutions that may sometimes buck the ideological trend but which so far, have been used successfully to create sustainable, visionary developments; and to turn-around some that had lost their way. It’s an exciting space to be working in and CAM-SCI are looking forward to the next six years. Pictured: A concept design for a new City Centre Innovation Centre. Thursday, 11th March 2010 |