Руководитель парка исследований Норвича подтверждает статус площадки мирового уровня и рост числа резидентов

It’s been four years since Roz Bird was named as CEO for Anglia Innovation Partnership – the campus management company for Norwich Research Park. Much has changed over that period. Norwich Research Park now has a long-term investor partnership which is funding the new Hawkmoth Building, currently under construction. There has been significant growth in the number of businesses that are now established tenants. What's more, the pipeline to encourage new start-ups and spin-outs is being supported by a successful incubator programme and a new BioTransitions programme. We spoke with Roz to find out how things are going. How do you feel about the progress that has been made since your appointment? "Well, I am very pleased to report that things are still on plan. "A key element of the original plan was to understand the unique selling point of the campus – what makes it different to other locations – and then to bring it all together to promote it as a whole ecosystem. READ MORE: How to maximise publicly funded research in Norwich "When I joined, companies and institutes co-existed on campus. But I think it’s fair to say there wasn’t a clear appreciation of just how significant their expertise was on a global scale or the best way to maximise the impact of the publicly-funded research being conducted here." What are the key elements of building that ecosystem and how close are you now to achieving that? "Core to creating and nurturing a good ecosystem is building a community of mutual regard, looking after the people already here and welcoming visitors. "Having already built successful ecosystems at Granta Park in Cambridge and at Silverstone in Northamptonshire, I arrived here with a good deal of experience and knowhow to help deliver the Norwich Research Park strategy. "In simple terms, to attract people to your place, you need to focus on the human element of the proposition and the real estate in which they’ll work. "When it comes to the people, you need to identify who your target audiences are and how your proposition matches what they are looking for. "With real estate, it’s all about the buildings, planning, consent, maintenance and long-term management. Get this right and you have the correct ingredients for successful placemaking! "Having the University of East Anglia (UEA) on our campus is a real plus. The real value of universities lies in their ability to attract exceptionally talented people from around the world. Companies then follow that talent. "In other words, universities contribute most powerfully through the creation of a deep labour market of highly skilled scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. I believe the talent pool itself is often the decisive factor in attracting companies to a specific location. "That certainly seems to be the case here." What for you have been your key achievements so far? "Long-term, probably the most important one was securing a real estate investment partner in Vengrove. That was a massive achievement. "The Vengrove team understands the extensive campus-wide activity that is present here. Having them on board is a huge piece of our long term strategy jigsaw. READ MORE: Plans for Norwich Research Park facility approved by council "The construction of the new 63,000 sq ft Hawkmoth Building means we now have the ability to deliver the range of accommodation – this is key to the delivery of the vision for the campus. "Hawkmoth is just the first building in Vengrove’s 10-year plan to accommodate high-growth businesses that want to benefit from close proximity to the research community. "With Vengrove as our real estate investment partner, we have the ability to cater to companies' needs now and in the future. "Companies like ALORA and BugBiome can – and have – moved here, and can then stay here as they grow. "Another great achievement by the Anglia Innovation Partnership team has been the growth and ambition of our Enterprise Showcase events. "Their popularity and attendances have increased year-on-year so that we now fill the auditorium with a mix of academics, researchers, business owners, investors, professional service organisations, stakeholders and representatives from government agencies from London, Cambridge and abroad. "These events are continuing to raise our profile and are creating real advocacy and building long-lasting relationships and partnerships." One of your challenges has been to help translate discovery research into real-world impacts. How well do you feel that is going? "One of the core objectives across our campus is to ensure that the publicly-funded research carried out here has a positive economic impact, creating new jobs and helping existing industry to become more productive. "A good example of the latter is a partnership project being delivered jointly by the John Innes Centre, Tropic and British Sugar to tackle Virus Yellows disease that can devastate sugar beet crops. "To help maximise the value of publicly-funded research and demonstrate to government that Norwich Research Park is a place worth investing in, we will deliver more initiatives like this – where we bring together scientists, researchers and business representatives to help solve industry problems. "We are actively engaging the directors of our institutes to participate in these types of activities. "For me, a science park ecosystem is fundamentally about interactions — the relationships between businesses, researchers, clinicians, investors, entrepreneurs and support organisations. "A successful cluster is not simply defined by co-location, but by the quality of the connections between people. This requires active management and curation. "My role, and that of the Anglia Innovation Partnership team, is to build a thriving innovation community around the campus, bringing businesses together, organising networking activities and ensuring that companies become part of something larger than themselves." What are your plans for growing the number of companies on campus? "We need to help more companies to spin-out from the research conducted on our campus, to grow and to employ more people. "We have an established incubator programme that helps researchers to take an idea from proof of concept to company creation and then help with raising pre-seed and seed funding. "To complement this, we have just launched our new BioTransitions programme that will support companies at the next stage of their development after incubation, which is the ‘Seed to Series A’ stage, helping start-ups to truly accelerate into their chosen market. READ MORE: Norwich Research Park launches BioTransitions programme "We want to attract agri-tech spin-ins, from around the world, to join this new BioTransitions programme. "Companies will benefit from our scientists’ expertise and access to our fantastic technology platforms to help them to develop their ideas, solutions and products." What needs to be done to facilitate this? "To achieve what we need to achieve as a world community, we need good global incubator and accelerator programmes. "Many are already oversubscribed but, at Norwich Research Park, we now know how to support spin-outs and start-ups by playing to our strengths. "The launch of our new BioTransitions programme will certainly help on this issue. "Successful science parks intentionally create opportunities for unexpected interactions and this involves far more than simply organising formal conferences. "Science parks need to create different formats for interaction such as informal lunches, workshops, quiz nights, barbecues, sports events and showcase sessions to help people meet individuals they would not otherwise encounter and to lower the barriers to collaboration. "These interactions may eventually lead to investment opportunities, research partnerships, recruitment or commercial growth. "In my opinion, this type of community-building work is not an optional extra. It is one of the core value propositions of a successful science park, cluster or innovation location." What have been some of your personal highlights of the past year? "The conversations I have had during international trips have made me realise just how unique the Norwich Research Park campus really is – and this has definitely motivated me and encouraged me to increase my ambition. "Based on my travel and research, I am confident that Norwich Research Park is very much on an equal footing with similar clusters globally, including Wageningen in the Netherlands, the US clusters in St Louis in Missouri and the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (the largest research park in the US). "The total breadth and depth of research at Norwich Research Park is unrivalled anywhere in the world and many of the people I have met on my international trips say this to me." Finally, what are your thoughts for the immediate future? "As well as developing strategies and plans, I also love taking action and seeing results – getting things done – and I think this is just as important as developing an inspiring vision or strategy. "I am confident that we have the right campus team here at Anglia Innovation Partnership to maximise the opportunities provided by the amazing science, government support and real estate investment. "We are ambitious to be considered one of the great locations in the world to work in engineering biology applied to agri-food, health, nutrition and the environment. I believe we are going in the right direction to achieve this." For more information, visit norwichresearchpark.com