Reimagining the Campus as an Innovation District

If you walk through a typical UK campus at 7pm, the soundtrack is the clunk of security shutters and the brushing of litter in the wind being pushed along the pavement. Lecture blocks, libraries and most other on-site amenities operate to an industrial era timetable; innovation goes dark when the timetable ends. By contrast, the UK’s more vibrant innovation districts (I’m thinking of King’s Cross, Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor, Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle) all buzz long after office hours. Their secret is density of diverse uses: housing sits above labs; cafés share walls with accelerators; art studios occupy former warehouses.

Post‑92 universities possess many of the same ingredients (e.g. city centre footprints, transport nodes, talented people) but have not yet turned them into an optimum recipe for economic success. I’m not sure these institutions can really go on ignoring this at a time when every penny of revenue is becoming more important in the face of budgetary pressures and uncertainty about existing long into the future.

These institutions also typically own large footprints near city centres – a legacy of the former polytechnics being designed with commuting learners in mind. Much of that real estate is undervalued car parks, ageing halls or vacant retail units. Repurposed, it can do more to leverage talent, investment and civic pride. Indeed, there are already some trailblazers in this regard – such as Coventry University, which has regenerated 20 acres into its Coventry University Technology Park, which now hosts 70+ knowledge intensive businesses that benefit from the clustering effects of that location.

Brookings Institution researchers define innovation districts as geographic areas where leading edge institutions and companies cluster and connect with start‑ups, business incubators and accelerators. The value lies not only in proximity but in deliberate placemaking: high quality public realm, permeable (for people, not rain…) ground floors, reliable broadband, and “collision” programming – ‘events that mix disciplines and social groups’. For universities, the district model integrates three siloed agendas -teaching, research and civic impact - into one spatial strategy. Dominic Endicott from Northstar Ventures has written extensively about these sorts of topics and I encourage everyone to check out his LinkedIn profile (and the book he co-authored) for informed, authentic and practical thought leadership in this space.

Many people will point to tightening public purse strings as a major hurdle in the repurposing of such spaces – and I would agree that new landmark facilities and grand initiatives are likely off limits at the current time (SPF is a much smaller and poorer sibling to its bigger, meaner ERDF brother). But… I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. One need not look far to find shiny buildings that were financed at least in part by taxpayer money which were built (figuratively, and also technically literally) on questionable economic assumptions and turbid assurance processes.

Stripping out internal walls, installing modular pods and doing a bit of feng shui to shift the vibe from lecture theatre to collaborative space for idea sharing does not cost seven figures. Cafés that can extend their hours into the evening can double as demo stages and event spaces out of which communities form. Larger spaces can become home to spinouts – which should absolutely not be solely the preserve of the Russell Group. Pop-up galleries, repair and product workshops, charity hackathons and coding clubs ensure the district serves its postcode, not just its academic population. If building Startup Grind Liverpool and Liverpool Slush’D has taught me one thing, it’s that nothing earns social licence faster than an open door.

These things take time – often years – but they also provide an organic business case (and quite often the revenue) for investing heavier sums into areas which have truly emerged as veritable centres of excellence. I’m particular impressed by Nottingham Trent University’s “Confetti X” facility in this regard – an initiative whose story has clear parallels to this kind of process flow and logic model. They even leveraged corporate sponsorship from multinational media and sound player ‘Dolby’.

I’m also mindful of the government’s push for pension funds to invest more heavily in R&D intensive assets; and I wonder whether such property regeneration schemes might hit the sweet spot for these typically very risk averse fund managers who are being hassled by government to start throwing money into ultra high risk, illiquid startups with no collateral to liquidate if things turn awry. Bruntwood SciTech is already a serious player in this space, with their facilities hosting upwards of 1100 companies nationally, mainly concentrated across the North. I’m also interested in the capacity of such campus redevelopment schemes to play into wider active travel and green corridor initiatives – particularly given the university sphere demographic mix often being more open to such green initiatives.

When the campus becomes a living, breathing innovation district, the marketing copy writes itself: “Study here, live here, build your future here.” Students are less incentivised to go away at weekends; industry is better incentivised to start commuting in. Over time (and again – I do accept these things do take time to ferment), revenue from leases, revenue share agreements and equity stakes can play a role in counteracting volatility in tuition fee income, while KEF scores can climb on the back of a more fertile ground for tangible civic impact. UK higher education is entering a ‘show me’ era. Governors, ministers and taxpayers want proof that universities drive local prosperity. Turning the 2oth century estate into a 21^st century innovation district plays a role in demonstrating that proof – through bricks, jobs, tax receipts and a new generation of graduates who see their alma mater as the place where they first turned an idea into reality.