Science parks are on the front line of efforts to unlock a new era of growth, prosperity and productivity for the UK, delegates at the UKSPA anniversary conference in Warwick were told.

The message was delivered by MP George Freeman. With a strong biomed business background and Parliamentary science spokesman in a number of roles, Mr Freeman is currently chairman of the All-party Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

Hailing UKSPA’s 40th anniversary he said: “We have come a long way. The clusters in the UK have come a long way.

“Science parks across the country are now leading and driving the innovation economy in no small part due to work that UKSPA has done, so I wanted to congratulate and thank you for it.”

A Conservative MP, and now on the back benches, he signalled strong support for the continuing mission to promote innovation and science in the UK, saying that new Science Minister Patrick Vallance and Prime Minister Kier Starmer had signalled to him personally and publicly that : “They view the science, research and technology and innovation … as an area where they think the UK has been doing well and they want to do more.”

Mr Freeman continued : “It’s hard getting our ecosystem fit for purpose, deploying the industrial money alongside the academic money, building that innovation ecosystem, using our regulatory freedoms, using our procurement freedoms, building the skills pipeline for the industries of tomorrow and building crucially the clusters around the country.”

These clusters, he said: “Are the keys if we really want to turn our science research leadership into industrial sovereignty and into R&D investment.

“And as you have all heard me say many times over the years, if we get this right, it won’t just be Cambridge or Oxford or London, it will be the clusters all around the country, from the South Coast marine technology clusters to Cornish coding and satellite tracking to Exeter and Bristol Cleantech, South Wales semiconducting and Warwick’s  advanced engineering.

“All around the country the 20 or 30 clusters will drive both regeneration and the substantial, serious, sustainable levelling up, which will never be funded fundable purely by public money, particularly given the constraints on public finances today.

“Much more importantly, we also than attract the global inward investment that is to come into this country.”

He praised the work developing a range of clusters across the UK – including Warwick’s £700 million Connect Programme, the UK’s first Life Sciences Opportunity Zone at Charnwood Campus in Loughborough and the Midlands Battery Park in Birmingham, Arden Park in Warwick.

“These clusters are key to attracting that investment and to unlocking it and I’m really pleased to see that the Mansion House reforms that Jeremy Hunt and I and Andrew Griffiths and the team started two or three years ago now, are beginning to really take shape.”

This deployment of long term asset funds from pension funds into the City and venture funds will, he said: “become a flow of money as we start to unlock potentially hundreds of billions in the city to really take our science and technology ecosystem to scale.

“And there are other sources of money. Last week I was at the Global Family Office summit in London. There was £40 billion in one tent in Chelsea.”

Family offices are private wealth management advisory firms that serve ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Mr Freeman said: “These are major investors who are also very interested and hungry to invest in property.

“There are family offices, there are global sovereign wealth funds, corporate venture capital funds. And of course, Northern Gridstone (a specialist investor in university spinouts) proving the model that will now be able to develop for the Midlands as well, deploying local pension funds of employees in the councils and in the companies in the Midlands to support that Midlands growth.”

As the capital was deployed to scale up and retain the companies of tomorrow, said MR Freeman, manufacturing would become very valuable in supply chains.

He pointed to the example of Exmoor Pharma in Bristol, a cell and gene manufacturing company building the infrastructure to produce large scale biologics.

“It’s not just powders and pills. It’s the very complex manufacturing of tomorrow’s life sciences,” he said, alongside advanced satellite manufacturing in the space sector, manufacturing of quantum technologies and computers, the manufacturing of the first fusion industrial plant in the Midlands.

“As the sectors evolve, as the technologies evolve, and as we deploy the scale-up capital, then the footprint of these companies moves from being relatively small campus-based research companies to much more established, rooted companies with supply chains, bigger employment, footfall. Bigger and deeper roots and much stronger commitment to this country.

“To drive that reindustrialization over the next 10 years is an incredibly exciting opportunity. The combination of these clusters beginning to connect with each other, the money coming out of the City, the maturity of the companies and the convergence of the technologies makes this, I think, the most exciting space to be in, in the UK

“This is a big private public partnership and if we get it right, we can unlock a new era of growth, prosperity and productivity for this country.”

Turning to the science park community he said: “You’re on the frontline of it, and I wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you for it.”

Author: Simon Penfold

Photography Credit: Ed Nix