IN BUSINESS Collaborating firms made an extra £20m
WORKING collaboratively boosted firms at an award-winning science and technology campus in Daresbury to the tune of more than £20m last year.
The total business value – an uplift of £3m on 2017 – is revealed in the latest tenant survey to be conducted by SciTech Daresbury.
A spokeswoman said it is evidence that the campus is continuing to achieve its aim of accelerating growth for hightech tenant businesses by encouraging collaboration.
In a survey of 112 companies based at the campus, there are currently 202 collaborations between businesses located at the site, up from 161 in 2017 and 113 in 2016, with more than half of the businesses (54%) actively collaborating with each other.
The survey revealed that collaborations between companies have generated a business value of £5.5m in terms of new sales or cost savings.
These collaborations are mainly in the form of buyerseller relationships and collaborative partnerships.
The annual survey also revealed that there was very high level of collaborative intensity at the site with 73% of companies having at least one collaboration on campus with either the Science And Technology Facilities Council (STFC) or another campus firm.
Furthermore, 59% of companies reported they were col
laborating with a university – an increase from 49% in 2017 ● – with the universities of Liverpool and Manchester representing the most prominent relationships, but with a significant increase with Lancaster and Liverpool John Moores Universities.
In particular, there has been an upsurge in companies securing student placements and carrying out research with the universities.
Sci-Tech Daresbury, a private-public joint venture partnership between developer Langtree, STFC and Halton Borough Council, is home to more than 140 companies with 26 firms locating to the site in 2018.
Liz Ashall-Payne is the chief executive of ORCHA, a live resource for rated and reviewed medical and health care apps which relocated to Sci-Tech Daresbury in 2016.
She said: “The location is critical to our growth both in terms of who we can collaborate with here, but also in drawing in talent.
“It’s really difficult finding talent in niche areas particularly in digital and everyone is fighting for the same people. “But being located here our offer.
“We are about to go into another big bid with them that will continue that partnership on an ongoing basis and which will help our growth and futureproof us.
“Sci-Tech Daresbury provides a community where they want to support you for your whole journey. There is no doubt that, as we originally hoped it would, it’s helped us establish ourselves and thrive and will aid our expansion ambition.”
John Downes, group chief executive of Langtree and chair of the Sci-Tech Daresbury joint venture company, said: “In 2016 we revised our Science & Innovation strategy to focus on five key areas, including powering productivity through partnerships.
“It’s part of an explicit drive to cement collaboration at the heart of the campus, because it allows innovation and entrepreneurialism to thrive, unlocking business growth.
“This year’s survey proves that the financial and commercial value of knowledge exchange between companies means we can draw talent in research facility, part of STFC. continues to deliver fantastic from Liverpool, Cheshire and Liz said: “The core of what results, positioning Sci-Tech Manchester and from a numwe do is to review health apps Daresbury as one of the UK’s ber of different universities, and we use technology to leading scientific assets. helping us grow our workforce review more of them than any“We are continuing to build which is absolutely vital in one else globally to ensure that our reputation with the recent achieving our growth ambithat process is efficient, effeclaunch of the HealthTec Clustions.” tive maintained and scalable.
ter.“This will further increase Based at Vanguard House, “We are currently doing a one of six campus facilities, number of projects with the collaboration, cross-sector ORCHA started with five staff Hartree Centre around Artifiengagement and support the and now has 21 full-time roles cial Intelligence and looking at translation of research and with plans to double in size in ORCHA data and what we can development to application by 2019. do with it. linking the business and
In the last year ORCHA has “We have been part of a research community and endbeen working with the Hartree number of EU projects with the organisations at the forefront Centre, the high performance computing and data analytics Hartree Centre to look at how we can improve and expand of delivering health innovation.