WCP_White_Paper_Imperial_College_2016

A world-class ecosystem
by r es earc h ers from
Imper ial Co lleg e Lo n do n
i n co llabo rati o n with
Wh ite City Place
C r e at i n g
O p p o r t u n i t i e s
i n a wo r l d - c l a s s
ec o s ys t e m
WHITEPAPERWHITECITYPLACE

Imperial College London and White City Place A world-class ecosystem
Dr Anne ter Wal
Assistant Professor
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Imperial College Business School
Dr Christopher Corbishley
Business Coach in Residence
Enterprise Lab
Imperial College London
Professor David Gann
Vice President
Innovation
CONTENTS
3 INTRODUCTION
5 KEY POINTS
7 WHAT IS AN ECOSYSTEM
AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
10 WHAT DRIVES INNOVATION
IN CLUSTER ECOSYSTEMS?
15 HOW DO ENTREPRENEURIAL
ECOSYSTEMS GROW AND DEVELOP?
25 HOW FIRMS CAN HELP
FOSTER A VIBRANT COMMUNITY
AT WHITE CITY
29 KEY TAKEAWAYS
3

As recently as a decade ago, the ‘Death of Distance’
was a widely coined phrase. The future of innovation
was portrayed as a world where ideas would spark,
and innovations arise from a globally interconnected
world where people could contribute to innovation
from wherever they were. An ultrafast internet
connection would suffice for tapping into global
communities of scientific, creative and engineering
talent. Global connectedness has been valuable for
innovation, but the Death of Distance has not
materialised. Location, in addition to connection,
is as important as ever for business competitiveness.
In the new era of innovation, it is the location in and
connectedness to cluster ecosystems of science,
creative industries and technology that matter most.
Global research universities such as Imperial
College London have a central role in building
the ecosystems of tomorrow, by making discoveries,
educating leaders and developing innovations that
benefit society. Imperial’s excellence in Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and
Building (“STEMB”) subjects has produced
global leaders and innovations that place it in the
top 10 of global universities (8th according to
QS World University Ranking 2016). Located in
London’s South Kensington, with five hospital sites
in north west London and a new campus in White
City, Imperial is in prime position to execute an
ambitious strategy to continue leading the data
revolution, engineering novel solutions, discovering
the natural world and producing life-changing
innovations relating to health and wellbeing.
Throughout history, White City has hosted
some of the world’s most enduring institutions.
This includes the 1908 Olympics and a series of
International Exhibitions showcasing innovations
i n t r o d u c t i o n
5

1 Global connectedness has been valuable for innovation, but the
‘Death of Distance’ has not materialised: Location is as important
as ever for business competitiveness
2 Now, the location in and connectedness to ecosystems of science,
creative industries and technology matters most
3 Ecosystems are spatial concentrations of scientific, entrepreneurial
and corporate activities across a variety of sectors, whereby spatial
proximity between these parties promotes networks of knowledge
sharing and joint idea development
4 Businesses can tap into the potential of such ecosystems in a bid
to gain competitive advantage at a time when innovation is fast-paced
and collaborative
5 Creativity and innovation originate not from within single disciplines
or domain areas, but from the spaces between them
6 Ultimately, clusters form ecosystems by connecting a variety of players,
and building communities through shared space and shared goals
7 Serendipity needs to be designed-in: People from different backgrounds
can be brought together through initiatives that unite actors around a
specific challenge, as well as through the design of flexible space geared
at fostering communication and collaboration
8 Open building and site designs that facilitate communication
and form an integrated part of the ecosystem site are paramount
for realising the potential for creativity and ideation
9 This is why White City is fast becoming London’s new innovation
district, where major advances in healthcare, science and technology
are being engineered and a new approach to innovation is being created.
K EY PO I NTSin science and technology. Its name the ‘Great
White City’ was derived from the white marble
cladding used on the exhibition pavilions. As a
former industrial district, and most notably home
to the British Broadcasting Corporation, Imperial’s
White City Campus has the foundations of a
world-class innovation hub and the potential to
inform, influence and inspire the next wave of
technological innovations.
This White Paper offers an outlook on how
White City is becoming London’s new innovation
district. The emerging new campus of Imperial
College London in conjunction with renewed
energy of entrepreneurs and corporations to locate
in the area create opportunities for a world-class
ecosystem to develop. This report offers an insight
into the emergence of ecosystems and illustrates
how businesses can tap into the potential of such
ecosystems in a bid to gain competitive advantage
at a time when innovation is fast-paced and
collaborative.
November 2016
76

W h at i s a n
ECOSYSTEM
AND WHY I S I T
I MPORTANT ?
Creativity and innovation typically originate
not from within single disciplines or domain
areas, but from the spaces between them. New
opportunities emerge from creative abrasion, where
experimentation happens and ideas and problems
rub against each other. Although, with today’s
belief in multidisciplinary science, that observation
may seem relatively recent, this perspective goes
back to the work of Joseph Schumpeter, the
founding father of the academic study of innovation.
His work in the early 20th century promoted the
idea that innovations typically arise from new
combinations of existing ideas and technologies.
Automobile production emerged in those locations
(such as Detroit in the US and Coventry in the
UK) where the original presence of the bicycle,
combustion engine, and horse carriage industries
formed the right building blocks for the development
of the automobile.
9

It is no surprise that many recent disruptive innovations have their
origins in urban clusters: places that combine a spatial concentration
of a variety of sectors with a critical mass of creative, scientific and
engineering talent. London is leading the way in becoming a global
centre of disruptive digital and ‘fintech’ innovations. Companies such
as TransferWise, which revolutionised international bank transfers,
originate from London’s Tech City. Similarly, Magic Pony, founded
by former Imperial College London students and acquired by Twitter,
is the latest in a series of machine learning start-ups in Britain to bring
cutting-edge technology to the creative sector and attract the attention
of Silicon Valley giants. Microsoft’s $250m acquisition of smart keyboard
start-up Swiftkey and Google’s £400m acquisition of DeepMind
suggest there is a strong appetite for innovations that go beyond
technological excellence, blending design with a focus on performance
in unexpected ways. For instance, the potential for Artificial Intelligence
across multiple application areas was demonstrated when DeepMind
became famous for designing a computer algorithm that could beat
a human champion at the Chinese board game ‘Go’ for the first time.
‘It is no surprise that recent disruptive innovations
have their origin in entrepreneurial ecosystems.’
In many ways London’s ecosystem is unique in blending cutting-edge
digital technologies with multiple applications across ‘fintech’, ‘cleantech’,
‘medtech’ and digital or creative industries. These successful examples,
originating from London, raise the question of what makes ecosystems
work as innovation districts. The next section will discuss what the
central ingredients are to thriving entrepreneurial and innovative
ecosystems and provide insights into how Imperial College London’s
White City Campus will play a leading role in the ecosystem-led era
of innovation.
The idea of recombination being the source of creativity and
innovation is as relevant today as it was a century ago. In fact,
it lies at the very fundament of the recent importance of cluster
ecosystems for innovation.
‘The idea of recombination being the source
of creativity is as relevant today as it was a
century ago.’
Ecosystems may be a recent buzzword when it comes to creativity
and innovation. Sceptics may say it is little different from industrial
policy to promote clusters, prevalent in the study of innovation as well
as in governmental industrial policy since the 1980s. Just like clusters,
ecosystems are spatial concentrations of scientific, entrepreneurial and
corporate activities whereby proximity between those parties ought to
promote networks of knowledge sharing and joint idea development.
As a result, ecosystems are expected to thrive as innovation districts.
Just like clusters, ecosystems may capitalize on their reputation for
science and technology excellence, attracting future talent to the area
and building global connectedness.
So are ecosystems just old wine in new bottles? No. The
fundamental difference lies in the nature of activities that are spatially
concentrated. Clusters are usually concentrations of related activities;
ecosystems concentrate activities that may, at first glance, be unrelated.
Clusters bear a defined sector-specific signature, bringing together
universities, research institutes, entrepreneurial firms, and large
corporations that broadly work in the same domain. Although clusters
offer great conditions for parties to collaborate and jointly innovate
within the confines of a sector, they may not be best placed to spur
the development of radically new ideas, building on prior knowledge
from across industrial boundaries.
‘Ecosystems form a breeding ground for the
cross-fertilization of ideas and create a space
for serendipitous discoveries.’
Ecosystems are seen as key in the new era of innovation because
of an eclectic spatial concentration of activities that form the breeding
ground for cross-fertilization of ideas and space for serendipitous
discoveries that may be beyond the imagination of those deeply
embedded in environments dominated by a single sector.
Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay area and Boston’s
Kendall Square are internationally leading examples of successful
multi-sector ecosystems. Both Kendall Square and Silicon Valley
are more than mere business parks or university campuses. The key
impetus lies in the mix of academic, entrepreneurial and corporate
actors, including facilities such as mixed-use research labs, incubation
spaces and other amenities that blur the boundaries between academia,
business and entrepreneurship.
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Co-locati o n
Co-location of individuals and organizations spanning a range
of activities is necessary for an ecosystem to function well. Despite
advances in the speed of travel and in communication technology,
co-location remains an important enabler for successful innovation.
But what kind of activities need to be co-located for clustering to
breed innovation? We have defined four main building blocks of an
effective ecosystem and key participants that are fundamental to the
development of the innovation district at Imperial’s White City Campus.
‘The co-location of research, business and healthcare
will be a first in London, reinforcing its position as
a catalyst for scientific development and economic
growth.’
Academics, at universities or research institutes, form the first building
block. They offer access to the frontier of science where the seeds for
innovation and technological change take root. They experiment,
seeking new solutions to old problems, or finding new opportunities
at the frontiers of science. The first phase of flagship buildings opening
at Imperial’s White City Campus include the iHub (Innovation Hub),
the Molecular Sciences Research Hub and the Michael Uren Biomedical
Engineering Research Hub. State-of-the-art facilities essential for
scientific research will house research from Imperial’s Department of
Chemistry to seed a new molecular sciences community, connecting
with work in synthetic biology, data sciences, digital technology and
health. The key to successful translation activities involves bringing
talent from multiple disciplines together, such as engineers, scientists
and clinicians, pursuing life-changing research into new and affordable
medical technology.
Entrepreneurs
Corporate Academics
Government
ECOSYSTEM
C o - lo cat i o n
WHAT DR I V ES
i n n o vat i o n
i n c l u s t e r
e c o s y s t e m s ?
White City, once a thriving media and
communications hub and home to the BBC,
is being transformed into an innovation ecosystem
where academic, creative, and entrepreneurial
talent comes together to form a ‘co-located
community’ involved in translating and
commercialising cutting-edge research for the
benefit of the global economy and society.
The value of an ecosystem that underpins
its ‘innovation premium’ resides in the co-location,
connection and community of individuals and
organizations across a range of activities. Imperial’s
White City Campus brings together world-class
academics, businesses, entrepreneurs and research
partners in one Innovation District. It has already
grown rapidly in the last five years, with many
new organisations investing in the area, focusing
on new applications in health and wellbeing.
1312

‘A cluster ecosystem provides space for residents
to engage with and learn from new ideas, helping
to shape successful outcomes.’
Urban planning also plays a crucial role for the integration of an
ecosystem in the wider urban environment, which may set the starting
conditions for ‘connection’ and ‘community’ components of effective
ecosystems. An ecosystem should not be an island within a city, but
an integral part of its social fabric; a place where urban residents want
to spend time before, during and after work time to maximize chance
encounters and serendipitous events that may spur innovation.
Imperial’s White City Campus is ideally positioned within one of the
capital’s most connected transport hubs. A short walk from White City,
Wood Lane and Shepherd’s Bush undergrounds stations, Crossrail to
the north, as well as easy access to the M4 and Heathrow airport,
offering excellent transportation across London and beyond.
Co NNECTI ON
Mere co-location of academics, entrepreneurs and larger corporations
will not magically turn cluster ecosystems into centres of innovation
excellence. Network connections between those parties within the
ecosystem, and connectedness of these parties to relevant stakeholders
around the globe, are closer to being the secret recipe to innovation success.
Ecosystems offer great opportunities for accidental encounters
and spontaneous conversations between people of different backgrounds
and working for different types of organizations, which in turn may
enable the exchange of ideas and collaboration initiatives. Some network
connections are planned, others often come about serendipitously.
Collaborations between individuals working for different types of
organizations more easily develop and flourish in close proximity.
Organizations in ecosystems may also benefit from better opportunities
for global connections. A reputation of international allure may make it
more appealing for stakeholders outside the cluster to collaborate. Having
an ‘antenna’ in a vibrant ecosystem in the form of network connections
may help firms outside the ecosystem to stay in the loop of recent
development in the ecosystem.
‘Ecosystems offer great opportunities for
spontaneous conversations between people
of different backgrounds.’
Entrepreneurs and small and medium sized enterprises are the
second building block. Entrepreneurs catalyse innovation. They often see
opportunities before others and they are prepared to take risks. Relative
to larger established firms, entrepreneurs typically have an outsider
mindset, a greater appetite for risk and the energy and passion for trying
and persisting with something new and different. Entrepreneurs and
fast-growing small businesses are a key component of Imperial’s White
City Campus, where to the south of the site there is a set of buildings
occupied by young technology companies. Imperial College London’s
ThinkSpace offers high-spec labs and workspaces to companies at various
stages of development, including over 70 start-ups that have newly moved
into the area. Another entrepreneurial tenant in the area is the European
Innovation Technology (EIT) ICT labs. It has established its UK hub in
White City, as well as its FireTech Camp: a leading incubator programme
founded on the premise that young people are the early adopters and
innovators of digital technologies, and hence providing them with the
tools and facilities may spur innovation.
Imperial College London has pioneered the application of design
engineering across disciplines through collaborations with the Royal
College of Art. It recently launched the Dyson School of Design
Engineering to develop talented graduates and young innovators with the
capability to revolutionize sectors as diverse as healthcare, sport and
renewable energy. Following the same philosophy, White City Campus
participants work closely with their co-tenants to breed creativity and
design. Jill Hodges, Founder of FireTech Camp explained “[creativity] is
evident not only through collaboration in terms of shared business needs
such as office space and meeting rooms, but [also] in the way [local
businesses] help to grow each other’s businesses by building
relationships”. Advanced HackSpace is an organisation that works within
the broader London ecosystem and has been a key input into the many
businesses emerging around the White City Campus.
Corporations form the third building block. Whereas start-ups
may take the lead in the inception of novel commercial ideas, they may
lack the capabilities and resources to make these ideas materialize.
Corporates, when receptive to entrepreneurial initiative and scientific
advancement, may offer the scale and market power – and potentially the
financial infrastructure – to drive momentum behind new ideas and
provide the resources and ambition to sustain innovation. For example,
Imperial’s Data Science Institute has already attracted large corporates
looking to make the most of the data revolution. It brings together
scientists at the leading edge of computing and data analytics who work
alongside global industry partners such as IBM, Thomson Reuters, GSK,
Elsevier and Huawei to make it a reality. In an interview, Vice President
for Enterprise UK at Huawei discussed how important it is that business
and academia work collaboratively to create future value for society:
“This is an opportunity for Huawei to work with great entrepreneurs, and
combine leading research and teaching principles with our own internal
Research and Development to foster both spin-offs and future businesses.”
Finally, local government is a key player in building the White City
ecosystem. They hold the key to granting planning permission and
safeguarding space for co-location. They can also provide support to raise
the profile of emerging industries and ecosystems. For instance, White
City Campus’s medtech hub fits into other translational activities currently
taking place across Imperial College London, many in collaboration with
the NHS – in the nearby Hammersmith campus, where local government
and NHS Trust support has fuelled the potential to transform this space.
1514

H ow d o
e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l
e c o s y s t e m s
g r ow a n d
d e v e lo p ?
In the same way that cities have their own founding
story, ecosystems have diverse origins that influence
their sense of community, culture and purpose.
Tracking the emergence and development of leading
UK and international technology clusters, we found
evidence that their origins can lie with start-ups,
universities, large corporations or government.
After the early inception, ecosystems tend to develop
and grow as other parties are attracted to the cluster.
Commu n it y
Co-location is a necessary but insufficient condition for network
connections to develop. Academics, entrepreneurs, and corporate
engineers and managers may share the same location, but if there is
nothing that ties them together, networks of exchange and collaboration
will not materialize. It requires individuals from different backgrounds
and working for different organizations to buy into a shared vision or
a shared goal. Feeling part of a community, united around shared goals
and values, makes it easier to establish connections with people who are
unfamiliar and unknown, but simply happen to be nearby. Stanhope,
Westfield and Imperial College London are providing the cafes, bars and
spaces for people to enjoy meeting in, to extend time spent on the campus
into an area catering to Londoners’ most popular leisure activities.
‘Co-location is a necessary but insufficient
condition for network connections to develop.
It requires individuals to feel part of a community
with a shared vision or shared goal.’
Ecosystems may be home to different types of organizations that
span a range of activities and knowledge domains. White City Campus
exemplifies an ecosystem where academics working across a broad range
of application areas are united by a shared focus on the disruptive role of
digital, technology and design engineering for healthcare and wellbeing.
Such focus is evident in Imperial’s continuing leadership in research
on challenging Anti-Microbial Resistance, or the new developments in
Nutrition Science with Nestlé, focussed on tackling diabetes and obesity.
The world’s grand challenges such as climate change or future general-
purpose technologies also offer useful anchors that help unite diverse
parties around such shared visions or goals.
A sense of community is also paramount for attracting talent
to the ecosystem. An ecosystem thrives with people coming and
going, and thus it is essential that there is some stability in what defines
the ecosystem, so that it remains a continuous draw for new talent
of creative, engineering, scientific ability, for example from across
London and Oxford and Cambridge.
Taken together, ecosystems may be best placed to drive innovation
when co-located academics, entrepreneurs, and large corporations
connect and exchange in an environment with a sense of community and
shared higher-order goals. A relevant question in this regard is how such
community-based, connected ecosystems develop (page 15) and what
firms can do to contribute to and gain from such ecosystems (page 25).
1716

corporations and universities to tap into and benefit from their
dynamism. It is of critical importance for well-functioning ecosystems
that small businesses keep their place in growing ecosystems and are not
crowded out by increasing property prices that may be the unintended
consequence of a burgeoning presence of corporate or academic parties
in the ecosystem. In Tech City the original community of creative
entrepreneurs has started to look to move out of the area, as soaring
commercial property prices have become untenable for many young,
growing companies.
LondonTech City
Since the late 1990s and the lead-up to the dotcom bubble,
a high-tech cluster has developed around inner East London.
Developing organically due to affordable rents and proximity to
central London, the area attracted a number of software and internet
start-ups basing themselves around the Shoreditch and Clerkenwell
area, gradually spreading throughout much of East London.
During the early stages of its development, there was little
evidence of knowledge transfer between its varied participants,
as one firm based in Old Street, described how “little interaction
was taking place at the time between resident companies”. The same
company eventually began offering networking opportunities and
office space to East London start-ups, becoming an important
interface between SMEs and larger companies in the East London
tech scene, which up until that point had been poorly networked.
It provided a place “where different elements of the tech start-up
ecosystem could come together in one place”. By engaging corporate
partners, resident start-ups, as well as local government and
universities, it demonstrated the possibility of building an ecosystem
with ‘everything under one roof’, a model soon adopted by the
coalition government.
Strong government interest was based on the recognition
that the future of advanced economies like Britain relies on the
growth of an innovative, knowledge-based technology sector, as
well as the existing importance of the digital economy to the UK,
which today employs over 1.56bn people nationwide and contributes
£161bn to the economy. The original labelling of the area as
‘Tech City’ in 2010 was a government initiative set up to propagate
digital technology and attract global talent and investment via its
flourishing start-up sector. As the ecosystem grew and developed,
investment from large multinational corporations also began to
flow into the area. Large corporates such as Cisco, Google,
Microsoft, Facebook, Intel and Vodafone were attracted by the
local entrepreneurial community and opened up offices,
contributing to the area’s innovative climate and reputation as well
as benefitting from the innovative services offered by similarly
technology-driven, local SMEs.
While the presence of large corporates within the epicentre has
controversially pushed out some well-known start-up residents, since
2010, the clustering of small and medium sized enterprises in inner
East London has in fact grown from 3,200 to 11,000 firms in 2016,
servicing the needs of many corporate clients in the City of London.
Looking east, London’s Tech City for example, developed from an
initial, spontaneous and unplanned clustering of software firms
working on web-based applications, making it a ‘start-up led ecosystem
development’ (S). It gained traction, and started to provide substantial
evidence of success through innovation when the government (G)
first backed the region as part of its Tech City investment programme.
Subsequently, large corporations (C) such as Google, Intel and Cisco
were attracted to the area, an effort catalysed by two of London’s leading
universities (Imperial and UCL) through the founding of collaborative
research initiatives and talent programmes, which spurred the
involvement of top academics (A).
Shared objectives and support between the different types
of organizations centred within the ecosystem, and strong government
endorsement allowed a sense of community and interconnectedness
between parties to develop. In this section, we will assess the
complementarities between these different types of cluster participants
(i.e. start-ups, large corporations, and academic institutions) on
the basis of case studies that illustrate the advantages of building
communities and connections between them that foster exchange,
collaboration and joint innovation.
Initial spontaneous clustering of software firms
Government backing for creation of Tech City
Large corporates such as Google attracted to cluster
Universities starting to get involved
G A
CS
start-u p-led ecosystems
The role of start-ups is considered a keystone in the emergence
and development of ecosystems. An existing concentration of small
and medium-sized businesses characterised by agility, forward thinking
and growth ambitions is a powerful beacon to attract further
entrepreneurial talent from all over the world. It can also trigger
universities and large corporation to seek proximity to, and engage
with these small businesses. London’s Tech City is a good example.
The Tech City case illustrates the allure of a dynamic community
of start-ups and young businesses in the area and the desire of large
T EC H C IT Y LON D ON
1918

The GSK BioCatalyst illustrates the pivotal role large corporations
can play in providing the operational as well as financial infrastructure
for fostering ecosystems where complementarities between corporate
scientists, entrepreneurs, and academic scientists form the breeding
ground for major innovations to take shape.
‘Large corporations have a leading role to play
in providing the financial and operational
infrastructure for fostering ecosystems where
complementarities between corporate and academic
scientists and entrepreneurs form the breeding
ground for major innovations to take shape.’
ACADEMIA-led ecosystems
Universities have begun to take a central role in cluster emergence and
development, combatting the traditional view of their laissez faire attitude
towards entrepreneurial initiative and lack of central coordination in
university-industry interactions. Alongside their supporting role, providing
key inputs in the form of scientific knowledge and academic talent, some
UK universities have become the driving force of their own cluster
developments. Most notably Cambridge University, where the Colleges
led the development of Science Parks, using their own resources to invest
in land and cultivate companies to grow in proximity to the city’s historic
university. In recent years, university initiatives have become even more
inclusive, exemplified by collaborations such as London’s Crick Institute
near King’s Cross, a space where Imperial College London, UCL and
King’s College London work together with Cancer Research UK, the
Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Healthcare Research.
Because of financial pressures and a growing mandate from the government
to improve the translation of scientific output into valuable commercial
outputs, UK universities have become increasingly involved across an entire
spectrum of research valorisation activities, often with a local orientation.
In this light, several globally leading universities both in the UK and
internationally have led initiatives to nurture ecosystems around their
campuses. We see these initiatives as ‘academia-led’ ecosystems.
‘Access to the talent pool of entrepreneurial students
is a prime incentive for entrepreneurs and large
corporations to seek a presence in a university-led
ecosystem.’
Universities seek to attract entrepreneurs and larger corporations to
the proximity of their campuses by setting up new teaching programmes
focused on entrepreneurship and industry relevance, fostering improved
links with industry in research, and establishing technology transfer offices,
incubators and accelerator programmes that offer funding and facilities
to ‘spin-outs’ from staff or students. Top UK universities have led the
way in recent academia-led initiatives and have offered a template for
the role of universities in many other parts of the world in local ecosystem
developments and the future of academia-industry relations.
I NDUSTRY-led ecosystems
A second type of ecosystem development is led by larger corporations
seeking to create ‘innovation districts’ attached to corporate
headquarters or RD facilities. The intention of these developments
is to attract both small businesses and universities or research institutes
to their proximity. While the concentration of multinational
corporations is typically driven by corporate desire to co-locate RD
with other large businesses, close to fast-growing markets, several
UK-based multinational corporations have taken the initiative to foster
their own ecosystems. Such initiatives go beyond corporate venture
capital investments and aim to attract innovative small businesses –
to learn from – to their vicinity. By utilising their own small-scale
incubators and accelerators, corporations seek to keep up with fast-
paced technology change that may arise outside their company borders.
The GSK BioCatalyst is a leading example of the development of an
industry-led ecosystem.
GSK Catalyst
Located amid a cluster of academic centres and other
pharmaceutical companies in Stevenage, UK, the GSK Bioscience
Catalyst is a £38 million joint venture between the Wellcome
Trust, the UK government and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Developed with a ‘campus’ in mind, it was originally intended
as a hub for early-stage biotechnology companies, a vision which
has grown to provide small to medium-sized biotech and life
sciences companies access to the expertise, networks and scientific
facilities of a multinational pharmaceutical company.
So what’s in it for start-ups? Since it was established in 2012,
the initiative has been led by GSK, which has so far provided land,
facilities and investment of over £11m to help build and launch
the campus. With long-term plans to expand the campus fivefold,
it offers a range of equipment, expertise and commercial
opportunities that would be impossible for small or medium-sized
enterprises (SME) to develop alone. Facilities include office and
lab space within an incubator for start-up biotech companies,
an accelerator for late stage start-ups to grow and a networking
space in the form of ‘The Hub’. Tenants retain full independence
and the freedom to interact with any commercial partners.
And what’s in it for the large corporate? As one GSK
representative described, the ambition for the incubator and
accelerator space was to initially attract university start-ups, on
the basis that their cutting-edge knowledge and deep science
would play a pivotal role in future:
“The University of Cambridge has a spot there, UCL is going to have
a spot there..., as well as many individual biotech start-ups coming out
of Cambridge, Oxford and London Colleges.”
The BioCatalyst is a combination of space for incubating start-ups
hosted by the universities, from which GSK gains synergies and
biotech companies that have spun out of academic labs, providing
investment opportunities and new product development.
2120

As both the Imperial and Cambridge example illustrates, universities
may play a leading in role in setting “single goals” within ecosystems
as well as attracting additional participants. Access to the talent pool
of entrepreneurial students and the scientific excellence of its academic
staff are prime incentives for both entrepreneurs and corporations
to seek a presence in this emerging ecosystem.
Gov er nment-led ecosystems
One of the primary concerns of government-led efforts to build
ecosystems is the role of the built environment, specifically how to
design-in serendipity through meeting spaces, open planning and fluid
transport. Governments worldwide are asking questions in relation
to their major cities and transport hubs, such as: How to design for
international collaboration? How to build attractive spaces where people
want to stay after work? What factors ensure integration of business
parks or university campuses in the urban social fabric? The A*STAR
development in Singapore may provide some guidance, which is akin
to Imperial’s role in similar UK government-led developments, such as
its collaboration in the Diamond Light Source in Harwell and research
on particle physics in Daresbury Labs in the North of England.
‘Government has a leading role to play in spatial
planning that allows sufficient flexibility for
ecosystem parties to grow without needing to
relocate outside the area.’
As the A*STAR case (page 22) illustrates, government has a leading
role to play not only in directly investing in science and innovation,
but also in spatial planning. Planning should allow for sufficient
flexibility for research institutes, small businesses and large corporations
to grow (or contract) without needing to relocate outside the area,
and encouraging the design of public space that promotes interaction
and integrates the ecosystem into the wider urban built environment.
In summary, academic, entrepreneurial, corporate, and
governmental stakeholders all have a crucial role to play in delivering
on the potential that ecosystems provide for generating innovation
through co-location, connection and community.
Despite the differences in origin between start-up-led,
industry-led, academia-led, and government-led clusters, there is
striking similarity in the recognition that a well-functioning cluster
ecosystem combines entrepreneurial, corporate, academic, and
governmental initiatives.
‘Clusters may originate from an entrepreneurial,
academic, or corporate basis, but will ultimately
only rise as ecosystems if that basis is broadened
up while being kept together as a community
through shared space and shared goals.’
Imperial College London has a long tradition of nurturing
university-industry relations and entrepreneurial initiatives in a
bid to translate advances in science, technology and medicine into
valuable commercial outputs. Corporate partnerships with some
of the world’s largest multinationals have crowded in commercial
expertise, contract funding and bolstered the universities real-
world relevance. Similarly, Imperial Innovations, partly owned by
the College itself, is Europe’s largest, publically listed Technology
Transfer Office dedicated to the commercialisation of university
spinouts, academic ventures and the commercialisation of cutting-
edge intellectual property. The emerging Enterprise Lab
located across South Kensington and White City Campus
plays an important role in nurturing student-led start-ups and
harnessing entrepreneurial talent from STEMB programmes
into real-world applications.
Cambridge ICT and life sciences cluster
Over the past 30 years, Cambridge and the surrounding area
has become one of the UK’s leading high-technology business
clusters. In 1978, there were 20 high-technology companies within
a 25-mile radius of Cambridge. By 2010 there were over 1,400 firms
employing 43,000 people with combined revenues of £11.8bn
according to their annual Technopole Report. Cambridge has since
become renowned for expertise spanning technology areas vital to
the UK economy, including ICT and life sciences, both of which
share an important foundation in basic research.
The University of Cambridge has had a major input in
the growth and development of the regional cluster around
Cambridgeshire. It provided the impetus to transform itself from
a medieval seat of learning to a knowledge-based business centre.
Early on, an important supporting role was also played by
technology consultancies such as Cambridge Consultants, which
helped to incubate a family of start-ups connected to the university.
Similarly, the establishment of institutional RD which followed
close research links with multinationals has been important in
attracting corporate investors. Large companies were important
in injecting capital as well as applied knowledge into the university,
especially during the 1990s when the cluster started to receive more
systematic forms of private equity and venture capital funding.
Initially, the university took a laissez faire attitude to the
valorisation of university knowledge, which led to the
characterization of the cluster as a grassroots development, where
new entrants such as Cambridge Consultants were acting in the
face of a hostile university which frowned on commerce. While
this may have been the case early on in the cluster’s development,
attitudes have since changed. An effective cluster ecosystem has
helped to create an enduring sense of community as well as a
powerful networking and support structure, which provides
start-ups with access to laboratories, technology, skills, office
facilities, business expertise, venture capital and financial advice.
2322

Innovation is likely to arise from the spaces between these different
types of organizations, rather than within them. In all successful
ecosystems we studied, serendipity played a key role in forging
communication and collaboration. Yet, serendipity was almost always
designed-in: people from different backgrounds were brought together
through the corporate or government initiatives that united actors
around a specific challenge, as well as through the design of flexible
space geared at fostering communication and collaboration. That is,
clusters may originate from an entrepreneurial, corporate, or academic
basis, but ultimately they will only rise as ecosystems if that basis is
broadened up to include a variety of players, while being kept together
as a community through shared space and shared goals.
The concluding section of this report will provide perspective
on what approaches large corporations can take in contributing to
and benefitting from such ecosystems.
‘Academic, entrepreneurial, corporate, and
government stakeholders all have a crucial role
to play in delivering on the potential that
ecosystems provide for generating innovation
through co-location, connection, and community.’
A*STAR (Agency for science, technology research)
Over the course of around twenty years, Singapore has transformed
itself from an ‘entrepôt economy’, based on commercial trading to
one driven by knowledge and innovation. This transition is largely
the result of strategic investment by the government in science,
technology and medicine, enabling it to improve its position in the
global value chain and overcome its size limitations to become
Asia’s ‘innovation capital’ and global RD hub.
At the heart of this transformation is the Agency for Science,
Technology and Research (A*STAR), which represents a major
conduit for financing the country’s cutting-edge research facilities,
as well as coordinating collaborative RD with global business
partners. Key to its success has been the development of ‘fringe’
space: flexible land allocation that allows growing activities such
as successfully scaled-up small businesses to grow within the
ecosystem rather than being driven out. Its 14 biomedical, physical
sciences and engineering research institutes are located in
One-North, a wooded 200-hectare innovation hub where research
facilities, business parks and educational institutions can ‘meet,
share and discover’. Impressive breakthroughs in cancer drug
discovery, nanotechnology and smart systems are the result of
an excellent innovation ecosystem in which front-line research
is carried out alongside global research partners, including
multinational corporations and some of the world’s top universities.
With the intention of ‘designing-in serendipity’, A*STAR
promotes an open innovation model which offers incentives to
private companies in order to reach a critical mass of multinational
companies. Relocating corporate RD facilities is a risky and
expensive business, based on long-term strategic objectives.
To overcome this, the government supports corporate laboratories
through policy incentives and generous government grants directed
at translational research, as well as Singapore’s proximity to a vast
Asian market. GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis are two high-profile
pharmaceutical companies with RD labs in its Biomed research
centre Biopolis, which have established a number of collaborations
with research institutes and universities in Singapore. A*STAR
is also home to initiatives such as HP Research Labs and the
Experimental Power Grid Centre (EPGC) which leverages
Singapore’s superior telecommunications and energy infrastructure
and its research strengths in computer science and ‘intelligent grids’
to test and deploy front-line technologies in distributed energy
resources. Such companies are attracted by a sophisticated market
of early adopters and unique opportunities for innovative public-
private partnerships.
2524

CO-LOCATI ON
The frontier of science and technology development that academics and
local entrepreneurs are working at forms a major basin of attraction for
technology corporations and firms in the creative industries alike. Both
types of firms are often motivated by the proximity of the academic and
entrepreneurial talent. As a first step, ‘being there’ allows them to stay in
the loop as to what is happening at the science and technology frontier, and
– provided they have a culture open to external engagement – liaise with
these firms and with each other to contribute to advancing that frontier
further. Corporate co-location with small businesses, entrepreneurs and
universities or research institutes comes in two main forms.
‘A satellite approach allows corporations to
place an antenna in multiple innovation hotspots
and stay up-to-date with the latest science and
innovation.’
Some firms choose a ‘satellite approach’, building a small, but critical
presence in multiple ecosystems. Rather than putting ‘all eggs in one
basket’ by seeking a larger presence in a single cluster, they seek to place
an antenna in a range of ‘innovation hotspots’ to stay up-to-date with
the latest developments in science and innovation in a range of fields.
This approach allows firms to place multiple bets and enable technology
scouting. For example, Johnson Johnson and GE, amongst many
others, have satellite offices in multiple ecosystems, looking for new
opportunities by being in close proximity to multiple pools of connected
creative talent. However, there is also a risk of a too small presence, which
may undermine the corporate visibility in the cluster and may place a
strong burden on those of their staff present in a particular ecosystem
to foster a too broad range of network connections.
Other firms seek a larger presence in one or a limited number
of ecosystems. They believe that to integrate in the ecosystem and take
maximum benefit of opportunities to connect to start-ups and academia,
it is required to build a critical mass of own staff in the ecosystem.
This approach, although arguably a big-bet location decision, may allow
corporations to build multiple channels of communication and exchange
with entrepreneurs and academic scientists, and become an integral part
of the ecosystem’s web of planned and serendipitous connections among
scientists, artists, engineers and other highly skilled creative workers.
CONNECTI ON
Corporations may not simply benefit from co-location in a cluster
ecosystem. For corporations to play a leading role in the formulation
of new big ideas and the formulation of creative solutions jointly
with co-located partners, an open approach to university-industry
collaboration and active approach to entrepreneurship and
intrapreneurship are vital. Firms with a history of corporate venturing,
sympathetic to entrepreneurial initiative from their own staff, or actively
engaging with external entrepreneurs through incubators or accelerators
may be best placed to play an active role in cluster ecosystems and
take maximum benefit.
h ow f i r m s c a n
h e l p f o s t e r
a vi b r a n t
c o m m u n i t y
at WH I TE c i t y
Cluster ecosystems flourish with academic,
entrepreneurial and corporate participants
operating in close proximity of each other.
Each actor plays a part in contributing to a dense
network of connections of exchange and
collaboration and sense of community around
shared goals. Corporations, be they large or small,
may consider various approaches to being part
of an ecosystem. This concluding section discusses
a range of approaches small and large firms can
consider in a bid to contribute to and benefit from
ecosystem development.
2726

COMMUN ITY
Ecosystems may appear somewhat of a paradox to some. On the one
hand, a relatively broad range of activities should co-locate and connect
to allow for recombination: the formation of new, ground-breaking
concepts through the cross-fertilization of ideas across domain
boundaries. After all, recombinatorial novelty is difficult if not possible
to predict beforehand. On the other hand, networks between ecosystems
may not come off the ground if there is no shared vision that brings
them together.
‘Shared visions between ecosystem residents –
for example around future general purpose
technologies or the world’s grand challenges –
lay the basis for the bond between the residents
to develop.’
The answer lies in ecosystems built around shared goals. Shared visions
that lay the basis for the bond between academic scientists, corporate
scientists, creative workers, engineers, and entrepreneurs may either
be technology-push or demand-pull. Technology- or science-push
visions may be formulated around likely future general purpose
technologies, such as nanotechnology. Demand-pull visions may take
shape around the desire to find solutions to the world’s grand challenges
such as reducing poverty or battling climate change. Corporations that
buy into such a shared vision and are willing to shape it together with
other ecosystem residents form a natural companion for the academic
and entrepreneurial partners in a thriving cluster ecosystem.
Local amenities in the ecosystem are of crucial importance as
the conduits where such communities can take shape. Shopping centres,
coffee bars, gyms and entertainment facilities offer opportunities for
a 24/7 lifestyle where personal and work-related networking are blended.
In addition to spontaneous, unplanned interactions, established firms,
start-ups, universities and government each have a leading role to play
in dedicated activities targeted at forming a sense of community.
Organizing events that bring parties together around a united goal
or vision is not only a platform where connections between attendees
can emerge, they first and foremost also help signal the common
denominator of what brings local parties together. That denominator
may evolve into the ‘ecosystem’s DNA’, the unequivocal unexpected
‘new big idea’ that defines the ecosystem and works as a further attractor
of global talent.
‘A big-bet location decision in one or a few
ecosystems may allow corporations to become
an integral part of the ecosystem’s web of planned
and serendipitous connections among scientists,
artists, and other creative workers.’
For some large corporations in particular a shift in culture and mindset
may be required to take maximum benefit from being located in cluster
ecosystems. They may be used to organizing their operations in
top-secure, inaccessible sites, whereas an open attitude to ecosystem
residents to come and visit their premises and a tolerance of their
own staff working off-site are required for a fluid exchange with other
ecosystem residents. Open building and site designs that facilitate
communication and form an integrated part of the ecosystem site are
paramount for realizing the potential for creativity and ideation their
location in the ecosystem offers.
‘An open attitude of corporations to freely allow
visitors on their premises is required for a fluid
exchange with other ecosystem residents.’
Yet, also for smaller, more agile companies connectedness to the
ecosystem cannot be taken for granted. Participation in local
entrepreneurial initiatives such as hackathons, or academic events is
crucial to lay the foundations for network relations to form. Networking
is not a science but an art: everyone has their own style, there are
no hard rules, but it is without a doubt that effort, commitment and
courage are required to succeed at it. Members of small and large
companies alike have to commit to taking the courage to step outside
their comfort zone of day-to-day activities and actively seek out new
platforms where new connections may emerge.
‘The key to networking is for people to commit
to taking the courage to step outside their comfort
zone and actively seek out new platforms where
new connections may emerge.’
2928

K EY
TA K EAWAy s
White City, once the home to the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) and a thriving media and
communications hub, is being transformed into
an innovation ecosystem. Academic, creative, and
entrepreneurial talent will come together in and
around Imperial College London’s new White City
Campus to achieve innovation through co-location,
connection and community. This report sheds light
on how ecosystems develop and how corporations
can take advantage of locating in them and
connecting to them.
A world-class ecosystem 31

Imperial College London and White City Place A world-class ecosystemA world-class ecosystemImperial College London and White City Place
What are ecosystems and what drives innovation in ecosystems?
— Creativity and innovation typically originate not from within single
disciplines or domain areas, but from the spaces between them.
— Ecosystems are spatial concentrations of scientific, entrepreneurial
and corporate activities across a variety of sectors whereby spatial
proximity between those parties ought to promote networks of
knowledge sharing and joint idea development.
—The spatial concentration of an eclectic variety of activities in
ecosystems forms the breeding ground for the cross-fertilization
of ideas and creates a space for serendipitous discoveries that may be
beyond the imagination of those deeply embedded in environments
dominated by a single sector.
How do entrepreneurial ecosystems grow and develop?
— Entrepreneurs and small businesses, large corporations, academia,
and government form the core building blocks of ecosystems that
flourishes based on the interdependencies between them. High
quality players attract other high quality organizations, whereby
the recognized brand and scientific leadership of academic players
such as Imperial College London are fundamental to setting in
motion this self-reinforcing cycle.
— Clusters may originate from an entrepreneurial, corporate, or
academic basis, but ultimately they will only rise as ecosystems if
that basis is broadened up to include a variety of players, while being
kept together as a community through shared space and shared goals.
— Access to the talent pool of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial
students is a prime incentive for other firms to seek a presence in
an ecosystem.
— Corporations have a leading role to play in providing the financial
and operational infrastructure for fostering ecosystems where
complementarities between corporate and academic scientists and
entrepreneurs form the breeding ground for major innovations
to take shape.
— Government has a leading role to play in spatial planning that
allows sufficient flexibility for ecosystem parties to grow without
needing to relocate outside the area.
— It is of critical importance for well-functioning ecosystems that
small businesses keep their place in growing ecosystems and are
not crowded out by increasing property prices that may be the
unintended consequence of a burgeoning presence of corporate
or academic parties in the ecosystem.
How can ecosystems be designed?
— An ecosystem should not be an island within a city, but an integral
part of its social fabric; a place where urban residents want to spend
time before, during and after work time to maximize chance
encounters and serendipitous events that may spur innovation.
— Co-location is a necessary but insufficient condition for network
connections to develop. It requires individuals from different
backgrounds and working for different organizations to buy into
a shared vision or a shared goal.
— Serendipity needs to be designed-in: people from different
backgrounds can be brought together through initiatives that unite
actors around a specific challenge as well as through the design of
flexible space geared at fostering communication and collaboration.
—Open building and site designs that facilitate communication and
form an integrated part of the ecosystem site are paramount for
realizing the potential for creativity and ideation their location
in the ecosystem offers.
How can firms benefit from ecosystems?
— Some firms choose a ‘satellite approach’, building a small, but critical
presence in multiple ecosystems, placing an antenna in a range of
‘innovation hotspots’ to stay up-to-date with the latest developments
in science and innovation in a range of fields.
— A big-bet location decision in one or a few ecosystems may allow
corporations to become an integral part of the ecosystem’s web
of planned and serendipitous connections among scientists, artists,
and other creative workers.
—The key to networking is for people to commit to taking the courage
to step outside their comfort zone and actively seek out new platforms
where new connections may emerge.
— Shared visions between ecosystem residents – for example around
future general-purpose technologies or the world’s grand challenges
–lay the basis for the bond between the residents to develop.
— Organizing events that bring parties together around a united goal
or vision not only creates a platform where connections between
attendees can emerge, they first and foremost also help signal the
common denominator of what brings local parties together. This
denominator may evolve into the ecosystem DNA that defines it
and helps attract future talent.
White City London contains all the key building blocks of a thriving
innovation ecosystem in the making. The new campus of Imperial
College London arising in the area not only offers a critical pool
of academic talent working at the frontier of science and medicine,
it also offers a range of entrepreneurial initiatives and renowned
industry partnerships. In collaboration with entrepreneurs, existing
businesses and large corporations that cut across traditional sector
boundaries – and through clever property development and spatial
design – White City London offers great opportunities for a world-
class ecosystem to flourish.
A world-class ecosystem 3332

Designed by dnco. www.dnco.com
Commissioned by Stanhope

Imperial College London and White City Place
@whitecityplacE#whitecityplaceWhitecityPLACE.com

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