Future Cities Forum at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst this week

Above: the footbridge over the lake from GSK towards the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst

Future Cities Forum is delighted to be hosted for its 'Science Cities and New Towns' discussion event this week by the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.

The discussion will look at how Stevenage - the first post-war new town in the UK - is undergoing redevelopment to attract UK government investment. New housing alongside commercial lab space, culture and place is in the development pipeline. Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst is sited next to GSK on the science campus at Gunnels Wood on the outskirts of the town.

FUTURE CITIES FORUM

14 May

‘Science Cities and New Towns’

Future Cities Forum will be hosted at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst this 14th May (0930 to 1230 with a light lunch and tours of Stevenage's development sites by Mace Group and Stevenage Borough Council) for our 'Science Cities and New Towns' discussion event. There will be contributions from science campus owners, investors, bioscience companies, developers, urban planners, local and national government.

Two panel discussions and a planning workshop will take place. Our Stevenage event is part of Future Cities Forum's 'Science cities' series which recently has included the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in September 2024 with contributions from Peter Freeman, Chair of Homes England, King’s Health Partners and Imperial College Healthcare and at Saïd Business School (Oxford) in January 2025, with - among others - Professor Chas Bountra, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation at Oxford University, Oxford Science Enterprises, and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Our next Cambridge 'Global Tech Cities' conference will be held at the Cambridge Science Park this September.

Questions to be addressed at the Stevenage forum will include whether the new UK government is supporting innovation in science and technology development with appropriate funding and whether this key sector can help to lift the economy in 2025. There will also be debate around how to encourage science companies to re-locate to UK cities and towns against global competition.

There will be a particular focus on how Stevenage has encouraged manufacturing to support science companies, as well as developing the town as an attractive place to live in order to attract talent to live there. Current changes by the UK government on planning and housing with supporting infrastructure, will also be debated.

Discussion will include the government’s proposed New Towns Taskforce programme, and what we can learn from the development of Stevenage as the UK's fist post-war new town. Prospects for the creation of new settlements, close to the UK’s leading employment clusters, especially across the Oxford Cambridge Growth Corridor and the UK Innovation Corridor, will be examined. There will be a workshop of 40 minutes between the panels run by Arup.

FUTURE CITIES FORUM (0930 coffee 1000 start 1215 close then lunch and short tours)

Introduction and context introduced by Heather Fearfield, Co-founder of Future Cities Forum and Cllr Richard Henry, Leader, Stevenage Borough Council

This will be followed by:

PANEL 1 – ‘New towns and the UK’s growth corridors’

Karl FitzGerald, Project Director, National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) / UK Treasury

Tom Pike, Chief Executive Officer, Stevenage Borough Council

Kevin Cowin, Development Director, Mace Group

Peter Dash, Partner, Price & Myers

Eugene Sayers, Partner, and Head of Science Sheppard Robson

Fred Pilbrow, Founder and Managing Partner, Pilbrow and Partners

Andrew Fisher, Partner, David Lock Associates

WORKSHOP

‘How can we transform sustainable travel across Stevenage’s town centre, housing districts and science / employment hubs?’ Run by Kathryn Firth, Director and Isaac Prats, Architect in Cities Planning and Design, Arup

PANEL 2 – ‘Creating sustainable places for world class R&D’

Oliver (‘Oli’) King, Director and Head of Leasing, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst

Rafiq Hasan, Chief Executive, Complement Therapeutics

Daniel McCluskey, Dean of the School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire

Dave Michalovich, Vice President Translational Research, GSK

Emily Slupek, Director – Project Management (Oxford), Savills

Ellie Junod, Life Sciences Associate Director, UBS Asset Management

Ed Hayden, Director and Head of Science Sector, Scott Brownrigg