Nottingham City Council to invest in new biosciences business incubator

6 January 2015

Nottingham City Council is investing £6.5m from the local growth fund to build a bioscience incubator next to the existing highly successful BioCity complex.

The planned 5-storey, 50,000 sq ft building has received planning permission from the Council and is expected to create up to 200 jobs.

Nick Heath, operations director at Willmott Dixon in the East Midlands, said: “The new building will feature a number of state-of-the-art biology and chemistry laboratories in a range of sizes, as well as ancillary space for commercial lease to both start-up and existing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) within the sector.”

Architect's concept of the biosciences incubator

Hugh Avison, group director at architects CPMG, said: “Nottingham is already well known for its science expertise — being the home of Ibruprofen and the MRI scanner. The area is highlighted for major future development as the Eastside Regeneration Zone; we are immensely proud to be designing the first building as part of this, which we are sure will act as a catalyst for further development.”

The Council has also launched plans to make the City a centre for science and technology. The Council has signed the European Places Declaration, a Europe-wide scheme to improve science in society. The European Commission’s FP7 Science in Society Framework Initiative (PLACES) brings together European cities to share methods and good practice and plans for the development of cities of scientific culture.

Councillor Nick McDonald, portfolio holder for jobs and skills at Nottingham City Council, said, “I’m delighted to announce that Nottingham is adding its name to the PLACES Declaration and becoming officially a City of Scientific Culture. To be a prosperous knowledge economy with opportunities for all we have to equip the next generation with the skills, experiences and qualifications to do the job.

"STEMworks is a growth plan that shows us by working together we can grow community engagement with science, technology, engineering and maths – the STEM backbone subjects; we can grow industry links to the classroom and open up new possibilities for students; and how we can grow a workforce that can inspire children, young people and their families to think STEM first.”

Source: Business Link East Midlands: www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk