University of Cambridge ‘borrowing ideas’ from Cambridge, Massachusetts, as it develops innovation ecosystem

Cambridge is borrowing ideas from Cambridge, Massachusetts, as it develops its innovation ecosystem.

In her annual address, University of Cambridge vice chancellor Prof Deborah Prentice told how Kendall Square - home to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)and one of the world’s leading centres for biotech research and innovation - had inspired ideas that are being taken on board in its approach to “placemaking”.

The vice-chancellor said: “We are deploying placemaking in multiple sites to take our research and innovation ecosystem to the next level of maturity.

“On the Biomedical Campus, we are partnering on plans for a Cancer Research Hospital that will close the distance between bench and bedside, delivering innovative solutions that will transform the lives of cancer patients.

“We are partners in a new children’s hospital that will integrate mental and physical health, translating research on prevention and the early diagnosis of disease into children’s care.”

She continued: ”At West Cambridge, we are planning the next phase of development, this time with a vision: a vision, 20 years in the making, to combine all of engineering once again on one site. A vision in which academic departments co-locate with industry partners, national research institutes, scaling companies, and investors to create the leading location in Europe for AI, quantum, and climate research.

“A vision of a scale of research activity that will attract leading companies and research talent to the UK, on a site designed to best-in-class environmental specifications and with attention to outdoor as well as indoor spaces.”

The vice chancellor added: “In the centre of Cambridge, we are building an Innovation Hub that will bring together spin-outs, start-ups, scaling companies, corporate innovation teams, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and our world-class research community, all in a facility located at 1-3 Hills Road, just a short walk from the train station.

“The vision for this hub, and indeed for much of our expanded innovation ecosystem, is borrowed shamelessly from the development of Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A group of us went to see key people and the physical infrastructure they created in Kendall Square, and we were struck by the lessons for the development of our Cambridge.

“About 15 years ago, faced with competition from Silicon Valley and other innovation districts, stakeholders at MIT and Harvard took a couple of important decisions: first of all to co-operate rather than compete, and second, to invest on a large scale in lab space, incubator space, equipment, hubs – the infrastructure needed to support deep-tech and life-science start-ups.

“The result was a step-change in their translation capabilities, their social and economic impact, and critically, their ability to attract and retain top academic talent at all levels. We can do the same.”

This, she said, could only be achieved by working with central and local government, major employers and other partners.

Noting how the government saw Cambridge as “central to their growth agenda”, she sounded an optimistic note: “This is where opportunity bleeds over into necessity, for Britain must grow. Here in Cambridge, government investment in our development means that obstacles to our growth – the lack of water, transportation infrastructure, and affordable housing, for example – might finally be addressed.”

But she added that growth must be achieved in a “fairer and more inclusive way” - and warned there was “no playbook for inclusive innovation”, even in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Instead, that needs to be invented here, she said.

“Moving forward, new facilities, starting with the West Hub, the Innovation Hub, and the two new hospitals will be for everyone in the community,” she pledged.

Work is needed on the Sidgwick site, said Prof Prentice, including restoration of the grade II*-listed Stirling building, which will start this year and “improve the building’s accessibility, safety, and comfort, while reducing its carbon footprint and improving its climate resilience”.

There is an opportunity, she said, for the arts, humanities and social sciences to “develop a new vision for the Sidgwick site” reflecting the direction in which the academic fields are going.

“A key question in this process is how the Sidgwick site relates to its neighbour, the University Library,” said Prof Prentice. “The UL will be celebrating its centenary on its current site in 2034, and in anticipation, has been asking some of these very same questions: How can it refashion its historic estate to serve the needs of research and scholarship in the 21st century?

“The UL is an amazing building on an enormous site, positioned centrally between West Cambridge and the city centre, with the Sidgwick site and many colleges nearby. It holds huge opportunity for an exciting restoration project.”

Similar work is under way on the Downing site, where the School of Biological Sciences and the university’s Estates Division have a plan to “transform their teaching and research space using only 80 percent of their current square footage, thereby improving their environmental and financial sustainability, while providing a collaborative working and studying environment fit for the biosciences of the future”.

This, the vice-chancellor suggested, was “what we need to do across the historic estate, and we are now very close to having a full vision for it”.