The Rising Role of Regional Science & Technology Parks in the UK’s Innovation Economy

Across the UK, regional science and technology parks are becoming one of the most important levers for driving future economic growth.

Their role now extends far beyond simply providing space for laboratories or R&D facilities — they are emerging as strategic hubs of place-based innovation, enabling cluster development, attracting investment, and strengthening the links between advanced manufacturing, agri-tech, life sciences, cyber, AI and data.

This shift was felt strongly at UKSPA last week, where discussions repeatedly circled back to a shared challenge:

Science parks are essential to the UK’s economic ambitions — yet they remain almost entirely absent from national industrial strategy.

At a moment when the UK is positioning itself as a global science superpower, this omission matters.

The UK’s current industrial strategy sets out ambitious objectives around research, growth and innovation — but it fails to explicitly recognise the unique role of science parks in delivering these outcomes on the ground.

Science and technology parks provide the physical, social and cultural infrastructure that allows innovation to move from theory into practice.

They are places where:

• early-stage ideas become viable enterprises,
• research translates into commercial impact, and
• multi-sector collaboration becomes part of the everyday environment.

Yet the UK’s commercial innovation landscape remains narrow. Only four UK companies appear in the global top 100 innovation leaders, and all are more than 25 years old.

This lack of emergent, fast-scaling enterprises highlights a persistent national challenge: turning research strength into commercial strength.

Well-designed, well-governed science parks, particularly those anchored within real regional clusters — are one of the most powerful mechanisms for addressing this gap.

One of the clearest insights from UKSPA was the growing recognition that innovation is geographically uneven — and that, with the right approach, this unevenness becomes a strategic advantage.

Devolution deals and emerging local industrial strategies in places such as Greater Manchester (GMCA) and the Liverpool City Region (LCRCA) are creating new mechanisms for spatially targeted investment. These frameworks give local areas more control over how innovation ecosystems develop — and science parks are increasingly the anchor points around which those ecosystems form.

The prize is enormous:

Closing the productivity gap between the north and south of England could add £54bn to the UK economy.

Science and technology parks play a central role in unlocking this opportunity by bringing together:

• universities and FE/HE partners,
• large industry and SMEs,
• Catapults and research institutions,
• local authorities and inward-investment agencies.

The success of long-term investments such as the AMRC — developed over decades of persistent, aligned commitment — demonstrates just how powerful science-park-centred ecosystems can become when the right foundations are in place.

Innovation today is inherently interdisciplinary. The breakthroughs with the greatest impact are emerging at the intersections — where materials science converges with advanced manufacturing, where agri-tech meets robotics and AI, where life sciences integrates with digital therapeutics.

Regional science parks create the environment for this convergence by:

• colocating complementary industries,
• accelerating knowledge exchange,
• attracting and retaining talent,
• enabling pilot manufacturing and test beds,
• fostering robust spin-out and scale-up pipelines.

The convergence of cyber, data and advanced manufacturing is among the fastest-growing areas in the UK. Parks that support genuine cross-sector integration: academically, commercially and spatially — will be the ones that shape the next decade of industrial growth.

The approval of the Peterborough Science & Technology Park marks an important milestone not just for the region, but also for our own practice and the evolution of BondBryan:Fairhursts.

As the specialist science division of Bond Bryan, Bond Bryan:Fairhursts brings deep expertise in:

• science and innovation design,
• technically complex R&D environments,
• advanced manufacturing,
• net-zero strategy,
• landscape-led master planning,
• and long-term cluster development.

Bond Bryan adds complementary strengths in:

• education and skills ecosystems,
• residential, mixed-use and placemaking,
• large-scale masterplanning,
• and meaningful public and private sector engagement.

Together, our combined offer enabled a fully integrated, multidisciplinary approach to Peterborough, the kind of approach modern science parks increasingly demand.

Crucially, the project also strengthens our presence across Cambridge and the wider innovation corridor, demonstrating the impact that well-structured regional projects can have on broader economic growth.

Peterborough provides a template for how we intend to deliver other high-impact science and technology environments:

• technically robust
• people-centered
• place-embedded
• aligned with the long-term needs of emerging clusters.

If the UK is serious about closing productivity gaps, accelerating emerging technologies and converting research excellence into commercial success, then science and technology parks must become a central pillar of industrial policy.

They are not peripheral infrastructure.
They are strategic economic engines.

They anchor clusters.
They connect disciplines.
They attract talent and investment.
They turn research into real-world impact.
They bridge national ambition with local capability.
And they deliver innovation that is both globally competitive and locally grounded.

Places like Peterborough show what becomes possible when we combine long-term vision, cross-sector expertise and genuine community collaboration.

Regional science and technology parks are not just supporting the UK’s innovation economy — they are shaping its future.