From Strategy to Site: Delivering the Places where Innovation Happens

Chaired by Dominic Curran, Head of Communications at Real Estate:UK; the new trade body formed from the merger of the British Property Federation, the Association of Real Estate Funds and the Investment Property Forum; the session drew on direct experience across advanced manufacturing, defence, life sciences, deep tech and science parks, spanning cities from Liverpool and Sheffield to Stevenage and Cambridge.

The discussion spanned three core questions:

1. What are the critical conditions required for innovation-led sectors to grow, and how can these assets anchor wider economic growth, attract talent and create compelling, investable propositions?

2. What does effective collaboration between the public and private sector look like when delivering complex, innovation-focused developments — and how can better coordination across funding, planning and skills unlock productivity?

3. What role do well-designed environments and placemaking play in enabling innovation ecosystems, and how do we move beyond standalone developments to create joined-up ecosystems that attract institutional capital at scale?

Institutional investors are actively looking to deploy more capital into UK regional markets, but need credible exit strategies, viable project pipelines, and evidence that local authorities can use planning levers, land value, net internal area, Section 106, pragmatically through economic cycles, not just in good times.

Sheffield’s Innovation Spine offered a live case study: the first three months were spent getting all public sector partners to agree their shared objectives in writing, clarifying roles before anything else. That foundation is now enabling a pivot from evidence-gathering to specific investment propositions.

“The first thing we did was get all the partners to understand where the shared objectives were between them, and make them write that down. We reminded ourselves of what each of our roles are in making that happen.” – Charlotte Thompson

Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter demonstrated the value of an independent delivery vehicle, owned by universities and the city but operating commercially, as the structural innovation that made development possible without political distortion.

“The key decision at Sciontec was to recognise that any delivery vehicle owned by multiple shareholders is always going to face vested interests. We chose to go with an independent structure; recognising those shareholder voices but not being captured by them. That is what allowed us to make genuine commercial decisions in service of the whole Knowledge Quarter, not just individual partners.” – Barbara Spicer CBE

Innovation space is often over-designed for occupiers who don’t yet exist. A more graduated approach, quality environments at accessible price points, would deepen occupier pipelines and improve the investment case for growing SMEs and spinouts.

The session closed with a shared call to action: to present innovation places in investment language, returns, duration, exit, and to build the connective infrastructure of narrative, vehicles and relationships that makes regional UK legible to global capital.

1. Put place before product

→ Housing, schools, transport and community infrastructure are preconditions for innovation investment

→ Close the gap between sector earnings and housing costs to retain talent

→ Design communities, not just campuses

2. Build the skills pipeline from the ground up

→ Align FE and HE provision directly to employer production lines

→ Keep skills provision physically close to the communities it serves

→ Make skills strategy part of the investment pitch, not an afterthought

3. Demonstrate track record, not just vision

→ Show investors evidence of delivering projects through up and down cycles

→ Use planning levers, land value, Section 106, net internal area, pragmatically

→ Flexibility on viability when needed is a sign of competence, not weakness

4. Clarify governance before seeking capital

→ Get all public sector partners to agree shared objectives in writing first

→ Consider independent delivery vehicles for complex multi-stakeholder sites

→ Create a single, consistent interface for investors and businesses

5. Match specification to actual demand

→ Avoid over-specifying innovation space for occupiers who don’t yet exist

→ A quality environment that is full beats a flagship building that is half-empty

→ Use the built environment as a branding tool to attract talent and signal ambition