The Connective Tissue Underlying the Knowledge Economy
Five part Q&A with Andy Martin, Andy Martin Consulting
1. While CEO of BNP Paribas Real Estate UK, you were witness to an unprecedented maturation of the domestic property market. When did science and innovation-based real estate 'take-off', and why?
To understand this question we really have to go back to the origins of the science park concept. We can look at the likes of Frederick Terman, Dean of Engineering at Stanford University in the 1950s, who put science-related real estate on the map by creating the Stanford Industrial Park. This was an early engine for commercialisation,of the university’s research and eventually led to what we know now as Silicon Valley. Bringing it closer to home, we can look at the first iterations of this in the UK such as Cambridge Science Park, a similar venture started by Trinity College Cambridge which allowed scientific researchers and academics to be part of commercial enterprises. Another example would be Surrey Research Park, a very successful model managed by the University of Surrey’s Enterprise Unit which feeds off the research the university does. Later examples such harnessing the Atomic Energy’s Authority at Harwell near Oxford, Daresbury in Manchester and Herriot Watt amongst other represented later maturations of the concept.
In the States, the biggest early growth was in tech-based sciences rather than life sciences. Titans such as IBM, Oracle, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft became the bigger occupiers of this kind of estate. Life sciences is, perhaps, more interesting: it permeated the market in the UK in the same way as the sector did in the US. In the UK our life science industry is very much more closely related to universities, teaching and research-based hospitals and big pharmaceutical company research facilities. The wonderful institution, the Wellcome Trust, had the means to create its own research institutions, and became a major donor to universities including Cambridge, Oxford, UCL and Imperial, to promote life science. This collaboration provided the catalyst for UK to become major life sciences bastion it is today.
Many UK institutions can be credited in this process, but the Wellcome Trust, in particular, has allowed the UK to stand toe-to-toe with many comparable institutions in the US. During my time at Strutt & Parker we launched a research unit to understand how science campuses could be developed and improved upon. This later became part of what the business was famous for internationally.
As the market for this kind of real estate matures in the UK, this will provide another platform for real estate advisory experience to manifest itself. This could be different from campus-based growth, as demand moved to more urban locations, with proximity to colleges and universities, and major magnet resources. This is effectively why ecosystems based on something more than just the science itself become important: if you create the place, the longevity became the critical location criteria. People will want to be part of that ecosystem. Simply put, the collisions that spark and generate ideas can only happen effectively in that kind of environment.
2. Start-ups and university spinouts, as well as more established international companies with a presence in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, clearly desire to collaborate. What does it take to create an innovation ecosystem, and why is it important to consider community building from a real estate context?
The best ecosystems are ones that are effectively growing on the foundations of a community that already exists. They’re almost impossible to create from scratch without having that core element, which takes time to develop (sometimes centuries!). As an example, where do ecosystems work in the life science sector? In areas with a strong Where these ecosystems are strongest they create a ‘vortex’ which effectively sucks everything valuable in, attracts vital talent, enterprise and business that support and feed off them, and doesn’t let anything escape from the magnetic pull of the academic clusters. When you become involved in this cutting-edge scientific research, it becomes so compelling that it has its own gravity.
Clusters succeed when they have a hierarchy of focus points: these can range from universities, research-led hospitals (such as the University Hospital of North Durham and Duke University Hospital North Carolina, Mass General in Boston, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, Daresbury all within the orbit of the research of large pharmaceuticals). Hospitals associated with universities such as University College Hospital, or the Royal Brompton Hospital associated with Imperial College London, and corporate research centres such as those provided by large pharmaceutical research enterprises like GSK. The connections present in collaborating institutions like these mean that other things are drawn into their orbit.
Building an ecosystem is about creating an environment to thrive, which starts principally with a strong academic cluster but includes the whole social structure or work and play. These are founded around urban centres, not urban outliers. Especially in London, Oxford or Cambridge the question for this real estate will often be ‘is it a cycle ride away’? The green attributes of people involved in these industries is very strong. All this proves that proximity cannot be underestimated when it comes to building this kind of real estate.
3. How is this informed by your research into other clusters internationally, particularly in the US? What did you learn about wants and needs, challenges and opportunities, involved in innovation ecosystem creation from the companies you interviewed?
Research into placemaking is a central part of real estate consulting life. What drives and motivates people to move, and form and strengthen communities? This has always been a question of seeing how people work.
When looking to develop the Wellcome Genome Centre south of Cambridge, we had to ask, ‘what does it need?’. This is clearly not only a question of building more research real estate, but also building homes near to where researchers work. In the US there has been a drive to build these ‘Bourneville’ style communities and create that agglomeration of talent; in Boston, in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles we have real estate enablers like Biomed, Alexandria, Longfellow, Bain Life Sciences, Divco focusing on the drivers in these clusters and communities.
Obviously, there is a question of scale between the US and UK markets. When we look at facilities in Boston, MA alone that already surpass 35m sq ft, we need to be realistic that this isn’t going to be matched on this scale. Commercial real estate enablers need to look less at the likes of Atlanta, where 200m sq ft of innovation real estate is planned and start looking at the reality of what’s possible in a British context.
We also have to look at innovative ways to lease commercial research and development real estate. Part of the solution is flexibility as these companies can grow exponentially once in product markets. Again we can look to the U.S. with business like Biolabs as a future model of innovation real estate where co-working lab space and ‘rent by the bench’, or by the room, is the new normal. That allows new businesses and those on contract research to find a place close to academic facilities that they are working from. We have that in limited amounts here, but it feels like the next evolution.
4. How important are chance encounters between innovators? How can we design buildings to maximise the opportunity to make these connections?
This really goes back by to research done by the American sociologist Mark Granovetter at Stanford, and his concept of ‘weak ties’ between people and organisations. These are not necessarily strong familial ties or friendships based on mutual acquaintances, but are interactions that inform you, and help you become the person you are. These can be chance conversations, they might come from people you see occasionally, even someone who only see over coffee. Through these weak ties you see new ideas play out in practice; those chance conversations and the ‘what are you working on at the moment?’ question all build to create a more informed picture of a sector; you find relationships and a spark that is essential in a sector like life sciences, where much of the research is conducted behind closed doors.
Where you can find space for presentations, functions and social events is where you can create environments to forge these ‘weak ties’. If you’re working in a silo, if the only collision you’re going to have is in the campus canteen, that collision radii is much smaller. But if you’re in a genuine community, that collision radii increase exponentially. As a real estate enabler you have to ensure that within your ecosystem you’re providing situations where people meet, facilitating those connections and ensuring people have means to talk with each other. You can do this by creating village communities, where this collaboration and research is part of their culture. This is essentially what Oxford and Cambridge are all about, examples of places that have already created this vortex. It is exactly what we have see in Kendall Square Boston adjacent to MIT. We cannot just let it happen naturally, but we really have to contrive to make it happen.
5. What is your advice for the growth of the innovation clusters within the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, and what could decision-makers do to maximise the region's innovation potential?
The idea of collaboration is essential here: science is a competitive world, but we have to ensure stakeholders understand this is not a ‘zero sum game’, and we can all benefit from better understanding too. We also cannot ignore the major potential cluster of development in and its connection with other sources of innovation and enterprise in London. We need to position the Oxford-Cambridge Arc as a natural place to expand and grow from London and further afield to the growing clusters in the north west and north east. This all comes back down to finding the right sort of co-operative environment; building the necessary housing to develop it, building new facilities, and investing in connective capital through greater infrastructure and connectivity.
Decision-makers must recognise that they’re sitting on an opportunity to grow their existing reputation as world-leaders in the sector. They need to accept that this is going to provoke conflict against a desire to develop, but we cannot risk researchers and academics who move to these clusters not feeling welcome and furnished with the resources to succeed. Investors helping to push innovation in the UK through new laboratories and spaces for research can take their proposals elsewhere if they find that it’s difficult to achieve planning or develop out their ideas, and we’d lose a huge amount of potential and momentum if this were to happen.
Get in touch
