Written evidence submitted by  Submission from Bruntwood SciTech (IGR0015)

Innovation, Growth and the Regions

Introduction

Bruntwood SciTech is pleased to have the opportunity to submit evidence to this important inquiry.

Bruntwood SciTech is a joint venture between Manchester HQ’d property company Bruntwood, Legal and General and Greater Manchester Pension Fund and is the UK’s largest property provider dedicated to the growth of the science, technology and innovation sector, and is the leading developer of city-wide innovation ecosystems and specialist environments, helping companies - particularly those in aforementioned sectors - to form, scale and grow.Bruntwood SciTech owns & operates a £1.5bn portfolio of 11 campuses and 31 city centre innovation hubs across six high growth UK cities - Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Cambridge and London. It supports 1,100 startups, scaleups and global innovation businesses to connect, collaborate and grow, with an inhouse innovation growth team, offering access to funding, R&D, highly skilled talent, clinical trials and clinicians, and professional services advice through its large partner network, including partnerships that enable direct access to the NHS and leading UK universities including The University of Manchester, Imperial College London, University of Birmingham, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and University of Liverpool. The company is on track to create a £5 billion UK-wide portfolio that can support 2,600 high-growth businesses by 2033 and is underway with £500m investment to provide additional world-class, specialist infrastructure and facilities in the UK’s fastest growing cities.

We are long term investors, developers and operators, dedicated to ensuring patient public and private funding is used for the growth of the knowledge economy. Our purpose is to power economies through innovation in cities, and through our shareholder Bruntwood we have been creating thriving cities for almost fifty years. Both Bruntwood and Bruntwood SciTech are deeply connected with the cities in which we operate. We play a pivotal role in creating vibrant places and unlocking economic potential. Employing over 800 people, the Bruntwood Group is approaching £2bn in assets, more than 100 properties, and works with around 3,000 businesses.

We provide everything from co-working space and meeting rooms to serviced, managed and leased offices and world-class specialist labs - from Containment Level 1 to Containment Level 3.

We are therefore pleased to contribute to the Committee’s work as a company with a record of thought leadership in this area and as a leader in city based innovation.

Key Points

How Does the Government Drive Research and Innovation in Our Regions?

Government - both national and local, has a vitally important role to play in setting the overall environment within which local innovation ecosystems can grow and flourish. The National Government sets the overall fiscal framework within which innovators operate and is also responsible for setting national regulatory standards and the national taxation system, both of which have significant implications for the innovation sector. We welcome the Government’s recent commitment in the Budget to funding Research and Development activity and also the initiatives of the previous Government to establish Innovation Accelerators and Investment Zones.

We believe that while there is an important place for nationally funded initiatives, there needs to be a better balance between these programmes and science and innovation related programmes that are developed and delivered at the local level. Locally based public/private partnerships are generally better able to understand the specific requirements of innovators in their local areas, and programmes of infrastructure and development investment funding are generally more effective when developed at a local level rather than by the centre. We therefore see an important requirement for named and focused regional initiatives aimed at driving progress and regional productivity overseen and supported by local partnerships.

Also, while the recent national initiatives are welcomed, we believe there is a need for a clearer overall long term funding strategy, that goes beyond one off initiatives, setting out how Government (national and local), business and universities can and should work together to support higher levels of research and development and unlock the potential of the innovation sector across the country.

As indicated above, this strategy needs to include, as key actions, a commitment to the necessary level of devolution so that regionally funded and determined programmes can be developed to support local innovation ecosystems to unlock the potential of the sector by giving companies and institutions the capacity to invest in Research and Development and innovation related activity. Combined authorities in the major city regions are well placed to use their convening power to bring the relevant agencies together with local enterprises.

Greater Manchester and Cheshire Life Sciences Fund 1 and 2

While a long term stable funding commitment from different arms of Government will be of vital importance to the sector as it continues to develop, so too must the private sector step up to build and provide financial support to innovation related partnerships. An example of this, and more of the same is needed with similar funds from both government & private sector, is Bruntwood SciTech’s commitment to the development of the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Life Sciences Fund 1 and its successor fund (GMCLSF2). The first fund was established in 2015 with the aim of supporting innovation and growing the region’s knowledge economy, creating more skilled jobs and helping businesses to expand internationally. There were over 900 applications for funding from this fund which evidenced the demand for investment in the region. 

As a result of the demand for the first fund, a second fund was launched in 2022 in which GMCA committed £10m to the fund, whilst Cheshire and Warrington LEP and Bruntwood SciTech both committed £5m to continue to build on the North West’s world-leading cluster of clinical, academic and commercial life sciences assets, companies and expertise, and is managed for us by Praetura. The fund has been leveraged by using coinvestment alongside the Northern Powerhouse Fund (also managed by Praetura) and other regional-based funds (e.g. Northern Gritstone). 

Alderley Park

Firms based at Alderley Park in Cheshire have and continue to be important beneficiaries of the GMC Life Sciences Fund. Alderley Park - the UK’s largest single site life science campus - is home to more than 250 science and technology businesses with 4000 employees operating across a broad range of life science and drug discovery disciplines. and these companies secured almost £50 million in new R&D-linked funding in 2023 Set in 400 acres of parkland, the campus offers state of the art, flexible laboratory and office space, as well as access to universities and the NHS through Bruntwood SciTech’s partner network. The campus provides a supportive ecosystem for businesses at every stage of their growth and fundraising journey, from seed through to equity and from start-up to mature, established players.

Innovation Greater Manchester

Innovation Greater Manchester is another notable example of a leading partnership of business, scientific, academic and local government leaders who want to work with Government to create a local-national innovation partnership which could lead to £3.8 billion of economic benefit and over 100,000 jobs across the city-region.

Innovation Greater Manchester’s goal is to build an innovation ecosystem and ensure the whole city-region benefits from the excellence created and developed, through high-quality education and training, high-quality jobs, good healthcare, affordable houses, spaces to support new and scaling businesses and good infrastructure with improved connectivity for all.

Innovation Greater Manchester aims to enable the city-region to be a leader of the fourth industrial revolution, known globally for the strength of its innovation ecosystem. By 2030, clusters of innovation-led businesses, centred on frontier sectors, aim to fuel productivity growth and prosperity across the North in ways that can be replicated across the UK. 

It is not a plan for just Greater Manchester; it is a plan to create a new national engine of growth at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse.

Partnership with Imperial College London

As of 20 November 2024 Bruntwood SciTech expanded its support for Northern, Midlands and Golden Triangle businesses by announcing its first expansion into London in a partnership with Imperial College at the White City Deep Tech Campus. Our reasoning for doing so is to have a joined up approach between the capital and the UK’s fastest growing regional cities to enable businesses to harness the power of the collective and encourage companies of all sizes to consider the UK as their first choice for future investment. By partnering with Imperial, it will create a singular ecosystem of UK commercial innovation connecting regional centres of excellence in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Cambridge into the capital.

We see this initiative as an important example of how collaboration can take place between centres of excellence across the country and knowledge and innovation can be diffused for the benefit of locations across the UK.

Conclusion

The subject matter of the Inquiry is vital to national and local efforts to drive growth. In conclusion we agree with the sentiments in the UK Technology Framework published last year that:

“The United Kingdom’s future success as a rich, strong, influential country, whose citizens enjoy prosperity and security, and fulfilled, healthy and sustainable lives, will correspondingly depend on our ability to build on our existing strengths in science, technology, finance and innovation.

This agenda will only be delivered if the public sector, civil society, academia, industry and private sector, and international partners work together, and the general public is constantly engaged to ensure science and technology is not perceived to be at the fringes of citizens’ lives.”

We believe a clear long term national strategy is required to achieve this where local places and engaged private sector partners and locally based institutions work together to unlock the potential of under - invested assets and help local innovation ecosystems deliver on their full potential. A key element of this will be ensuring that the partnerships who are best placed to drive progress locally have the powers and mix of long term public and private investment resources to do so and thereby contribute to higher levels of regional productivity.

Yours sincerely

Kath Mackay

Chief Scientific Officer

Bruntwood SciTech

10 January 2025