Office for Life Sciences joins our Cambridge forum
We are delighted that the Director of the Office for Life Sciences, Tamsin Berry, will speak at our Cambridge forum in November which will discuss the strategies required to create success for the UK's innovation hubs. Our 'science cities' forum will be held at Selwyn College Cambridge on 20th November 2019 where we will be discussing the best approaches to creating knowledge hubs and clusters within cities that are both economically and socially successful - and very importantly are well designed, especially in urban settings. We will also be looking at tackling health issues in cities and will showcase innovation in medical care.
Tamsin joined the Civil Service in 2007 and has worked in a range of senior roles, both in the Cabinet Office and Department of Health. She has recently taken over as the Director of the Office for Life Sciences, a joint unit between the Department of Health and Social care and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Before that, she was the Deputy Director of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and Sector Policy Team which supported Sir John Bell to write and publish the first industry-led Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and take this forward through the first and second Life Sciences sector deals. Her team were responsible for implementing the sector deals and working closely with industry to develop future policy and investment projects in line with the strategy.
The UK life sciences R&D sector is worth £70 billion to the economy annually and there is mounting interest in investment in both established science and knowledge hubs, such as Cambridge, Oxford and the Crick / Wellcome / UCLH quarter at King's Cross, as well as emerging districts like Whitechapel. There is increasing focus on development in the regions, exemplified by the L&G Capital and Bruntwood SciTech joint venture in the North West.
On a global level, there is also government, investor and developer interest in what makes these scientific and creative hubs successful. London, despite strong challenges from Paris, remains Europe’s leading destination for ICT with the number employed up by 20% over the last 10 years, and £4 billion in venture capital raised by smaller London tech firms in last 2 years (according to CBRE.)
At the Cambridge forum we will be looking at how housing and social infrastructure can best be developed around knowledge clusters – whether they are centred around university, hospital or corporate R&D campuses. It is vital that joined-up planning is considered for the whole ecosystem around knowledge clusters including infrastructure provision, housing, access to schools, healthcare and culture – and this will include how urban clusters and science business parks relate to neighbouring communities.