UK science parks are at the heart of the nation’s innovation ecosystems, the head of Research England has told the UKSPA conference at Warwick University.
Professor Dame Jessica Corner is the Executive Chair for Research England, the UK’s biggest research funder and part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
In her keynote address to the UK Science Park Association’s 40th anniversary conference, she laid out the current research and the work going on to develop and shape effective innovation ecosystems across the country.
This included identifying areas where productivity is growing and where it is falling.
Areas like Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, East and West Sussex are steaming ahead, while West Yorkshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire are falling behind.
Greater Manchester and Cornwall have been identified as making progress, said Prof Corner.
“By those measures, something is happening, something that we need to focus on. How can we help locations be more than average, and not fall into the category of losing ground, and instead move towards those steaming ahead?”
Research in the UK and internationally was identifying the elements that made up successful innovation ecosystems and to stimulate innovation-led growth, she said, looking at areas around the world where change had happened, where they had developed from a low productivity zone towards high productivity.
“In order for those things to happen, there has to be research and development investment at scale in that setting. You have to have human capital retained in that ecosystem. Do university graduates stay or do they leave and go off to London or somewhere else? Are the skills of those people matched to the local business needs? And direct investment is crucial.
“Collaboration is essential. With all of those elements, it means everybody in that ecosystem has got to be working in networked partnership with each other. You need networking, so people talk to each other, share ideas and get to know each other.
“You have to have these existing stock of skills, people, R&D capacity and you also have to have a policy environment that is funding and shaping and developing that potential.
“You can see we’ve all got a lot to do to really motor this and make it happen.”
Work was under way to improve funding and investment strategy, working in collaboration with a range of bodies.
“We invest in specific programmes to strengthen places, to create investment close to businesses and to develop clusters of activity. We have the innovation accelerators in Glasgow, Manchester and the West Midlands, which are about supporting business-led developments. And we’ve had local policy innovation partnerships and now Place-Based Impact Acceleration Accounts which are about taking ideas forward.”
Turning to science parks, Prof Corner said the sector needed a clear vision about how it fit into the bigger strategic picture.
“It is more than being a rental business but being these incredible heart of innovation ecosystems. How are you linking all of that together with the various actors and collaborations that are possible? It is absolutely thinking about how you’re drawing in that foreign direct investment and private sector investment into the companies that you are supporting.”
Science parks needed to be part of the conversation, she said, as future investment strategies were developed.
Author: Simon Penfold
Photography Credit: Ed Nix
