Runway Park: A Vision for a Next-Generation Innovation Campus

Designed to accelerate the region’s role as a global hub for advanced manufacturing, research, and technology, Runway Park represents a bold vision for innovation in South Yorkshire.

Building on decades of collaboration with the University and deep roots in Sheffield’s industrial heritage, our work on the University of Sheffield’s Runway Park sets out a forward-thinking strategy that transforms this 100-acre plot into a thriving destination for the UK’s top advanced manufacturing talent.

The design creates opportunities for pioneering research spaces, collaborative industry zones, and high-quality public realm – all underpinned by innovation acceleration and long-term value.

Runway Park is already home to a remarkable cluster of advanced manufacturing and research facilities — a testament to the University of Sheffield’s long-standing commitment to innovation.

We’re proud to have played a role in shaping many of these critical facilities, including the nationally recognised Factory 2050, the Gene Therapy Innovation and Manufacturing Centre, the Royce Translational Centre, the Laboratory for Verification and Validation, the Translational Energy Research Centre, and most recently, the AMRC COMPASS project, developed with Boeing to house advanced composites R&D.

Together, these projects have created a thriving innovation ecosystem — advancing everything from early-stage research to testing, validation, and industrial-scale application. Their success has not only demonstrated the power of co-located, mission-driven infrastructure, but also set the stage for this exciting next phase of development.

The new masterplan builds on this momentum — strategically connecting existing assets and setting a clear, cohesive vision for growth. It focuses on amplifying innovation, unlocking potential, and shaping a world-class environment that supports collaboration, sustainability, and long-term impact.

At the heart of these strategic choices is the aim to connect the innovation lifecycle. In practice, this means designing a place that brings research, industry, and entrepreneurship into close, everyday contact — physically and culturally. It means creating a rich campus environment where discovery turns to development, and innovation leads to impact.

Our approach enables the types of relationships that drive progress — between academics and start-ups, between investors and inventors, between institutions and their environment. The masterplan strengthens these relationships by making them visible and viable: through integrated public realm, shared spaces, and a clear sense of identity.

Runway Park is an innovation district where cutting-edge research translates into real-world impact, where industry challenges meet fresh talent and academic expertise fuels commercial ambition: this is a place shaped for innovation, inclusivity, and long-term resilience.

Some of the defining elements include:

• Connected Public Realm
  Active travel corridors, shared streets, and improved permeability between buildings, creating a district that’s intuitive and walkable.
• People-Focused Places
  Human-scaled spaces that invite interaction, designed for both informal collaboration and scheduled activity.
• Ecological Enrichment
  High-quality, biodiversity-led landscaping that integrates and connects 215 acres of woodland, parkland, green spaces and footpaths with the campus.

• Wellbeing Through Design
  Access to green space, outdoor social pavilions, and amenities that encourage healthy, active lifestyles for the people who work and learn here.
• Identity and Placemaking
  Architecture, materials, and public art that celebrate Sheffield’s character — with its steel-making heritage and nation-leading manufacturing capabilities.
• A Curated Calendar of Activity
  A district designed to host events, exhibitions, and exchanges that keep innovation visible and accessible to a wider audience.
• Scalable Frameworks
  A masterplan designed not as a fixed endpoint but a flexible scaffold — ready to adapt and grow with the institutions and industries it serves.
• Sustainable Infrastructure
  Best-in-class building performance, low-carbon infrastructure, and on-site renewable energy — all supporting a future-ready campus.

This masterplan represents a long-term partnership built on trust, knowledge and shared ambition.

Our relationship with the University of Sheffield spans more than a decade of collaboration. We’ve helped to deliver individual buildings that now stand as critical infrastructure for innovation. But this new masterplan has allowed us to zoom out — to look strategically at how those assets relate, interact, and evolve as part of a whole.

Creating a masterplan of this scale and complexity is never a solo effort. It requires a coordinated, multidisciplinary team, a collaborative mindset, and a genuine willingness to listen and adapt. We’re proud to have led a process that brought together expert voices across planning, transport, sustainability, landscape, and user experience — ensuring the final design responds to both current needs and long-term opportunity.

Our design team took a facilitative approach — hosting workshops, walking the site, testing ideas, and iterating with real input from those who know the area best. This is a district masterplan built by collective intelligence, with place and purpose leading every decision.

Runway Park sits at the centre of a growing regional spine for innovation: stretching from Doncaster’s emerging cluster at Gateway East, through Rotherham and Barnsley’s advanced manufacturing assets, to the industrial powerhouse of Sheffield Forgemasters, still shaping the future nearly 200 years on.

This masterplan isn’t just about one site — it’s about setting the tone for a wider regional narrative. A place that not only supports world-class research, but catalyses economic growth, industrial sustainability, and community value.

As the UK doubles down on its ambition to lead in clean growth, net-zero manufacturing, and scientific excellence, Sheffield is already showing how it’s done. Runway Park ensures it has the environment and infrastructure to keep doing so for decades to come.

Sheffield has always been at the heart of the UK’s manufacturing landscape — a city where materials, machines, and methods are reimagined and reshaped. That legacy continues today, not only in steel, but in advanced materials, gene therapies, aerospace innovation and energy research.

We are proud to stand behind the incredible institutions that drive that mission. And we believe that great design can help amplify their impact — by connecting ideas, enabling people, and giving innovation a place to thrive.

Illustrations by Katherin Dauncey