Localism bill is "not positive" for science parks
The government’s localism agenda could stifle the effectiveness of science parks, according to Dr David Hardman, chief executive officer of Birmingham Science Park Aston. Hardman said the creation of a national network of ‘Growth Hubs’ should be created by linking up the UK’s main science parks as a way to “nurture new business start-ups and work across Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) boundaries”.
He said that the localism agenda, released late last year, was “not a positive step forward for science parks”.
He added: “There is an ever increasing need for science parks to operate on a truly global scale, while the transition in the UK from RDA ‘ponds’ to LEP ‘puddles’ actually works against this essential natural progression to global - rather than local - thinking. The digital economy is a vital tool to leverage growth across the globe by connecting geographic locations and needs to be more effectively harnessed”.
Later this month, Birmingham Science Park Aston will become the UK’s first ‘science park without walls’. It will include video conferencing equipment and broadband connectivity, and will enable start-up businesses to communicate with leading innovators, academics and investors from across the world as if they are sitting in the same room.
Hardman said: “While this technology is popular in the boardrooms of some large international corporates, the prohibitively expensive cost puts it out of the reach of start-up entrepreneurs. We are working with partners such as Cisco and Tata Communications to overcome the cost barrier and make this technology accessible to start-ups, as we believe it is an essential tool for exploring funding streams and sharing best practice.
“RDAs compartmentalised the UK innovation ‘lake’ into ‘ponds’ and now the new boundaries of the Local Enterprise Partnerships will create ‘puddles’. This will not assist the UK’s science park movement to work together and drive the economy out of recession.
"While only 3.4 per cent of Whitehall’s total budget is spent on business growth, even Cameron himself acknowledged in a recent speech that just six per cent of UK businesses are high-growth, but they generated over half of the net employment growth between 2005 and 2008,” he said.
Hardman argued that science parks already have “the infrastructure, expertise and specialist support networks” to nurture start-ups – particularly hi-tech start-ups – which have the potential to become high growth companies and diversify the economy.
He said: “Rather than limiting access to resources, science parks need to be given special consideration outside of the small geographies of the proposed LEPs structure, where in the instance of the West Midlands, six LEPs are being proposed to replace Advantage West Midlands.”
