St John's Innovation Centre (SJIC) is a business incubator in Cambridge, England. It houses a concentration of science and technology related businesses.
The idea for the innovation centre was first proposed by Dr Chris Johnson, who was Senior Bursar of St John's College, Cambridge, responsible for estates, investments and financial policy. The combination of his scientific background and an interest in the development of college land in Cambridge led to a visit in 1984 to universities and science parks in the US, including an innovation centre in Salt Lake City, Utah. Upon his return he convened a small group including architect Ian Purdy and Walter Herriot, a banker working with early-stage companies, to plan the St John's Innovation Centre. [1] The publication in 1985 of The Cambridge Phenomenon: The Growth of High Technology Industry in a University Town by Segal Quince Wicksteed, [2] demonstrated to the college that investment in this sector was likely to be successful.
St John's Innovation Park was subsequently established on a 21-acre (85,000 m2) plot of land owned by St John's College since 1534, [3] and the Innovation Centre itself was completed in 1987. It was the first innovation centre in Europe to focus on supporting knowledge-based businesses. It is the oldest such business incubator in the United Kingdom.
Following the success of the original centre, a second phase, Dirac House was completed in July 1989, and the self-contained Jeffreys Building was completed in February 1990. Dirac House is named after Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize winner and member of St John's College, while the Jeffreys Building is named after Sir Harold Jeffreys, a fellow of St John's College. [4] Four further buildings: St John's House, Edinburgh House, and the Vitrium and Platinum developments, were completed in 2001. The land remains the property of St John's College.
The current total net usable space is approximately 53,000 sq ft (4,900 m2), divided between the buildings.
 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(March 2022) |
From the outset, SJIC had a remit to support knowledge-based businesses with both flexible accommodation, and onsite management that could help tenants and others to develop their businesses.
The buildings provide flexible office, workshop and laboratory accommodation, and tenants have use of shared facilities including a staffed reception area, conference and meeting rooms, and restaurant.
In addition, SJIC also provides business advice to tenant companies, and supports the wider business community by undertaking programmes in association with EEDA, the University of Cambridge and others. The centre is also a member of the EU-funded Achieve More partnership which brings together nine partners in five European countries to foster better incubation practice and collaboration across clusters. [5]
The innovation park has been a member of the United Kingdom Science Parks Association (UKSPA) since 1987 and United Kingdom Business Incubation (UKBI) since 1999.
SJIC also promotes technology business through its involvement with the Cambridge Enterprise Conferences. [6] The conferences bring together successful entrepreneurs with business advisors and leading academics to offer practical advice to early-stage companies. A policy day follows the conference which aims to define areas where government policy can be used to assist business growth. The conference has traditionally been supported by a range of organisations, including Business Link and the Greater Cambridge Partnership.
David Gill is the current managing director, having taken up the post in December 2008, following the retirement of Walter Herriot OBE, who held the role for 18 years. [7] The original director was Bill Bolton, who steered SJIC through its first three years.
St John's Innovation Centre is located approximately 3 km to the north of Cambridge city centre, close to junction 33 of the A14, and around 700 metres from Cambridge Science Park.
St John's Innovation Centre is located squarely within the area known as Silicon Fen.
St John's Innovation Centre was the initiator of the Cambridge Technopole Group – an informal network of business support organisations operating in the Greater Cambridge region. [8] The group aims to improve the range and quality of the business support services available, particularly for companies based on technology. Other group members include Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge Network, Cambridge Science Park, ERBI and the Babraham Institute.
SJIC has been responsible for writing the annual Cambridge Technopole Reports. The 2008 report was co-authored by Walter Herriot (then-director of SJIC) and Tim Minshall, of the Institute for Manufacturing. The report is sponsored by Cambridge Network and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
Since its foundation SJIC has developed strong links with the University of Cambridge. In 1998 and 1999, pending the award of University Challenge Funding, it assisted the Industrial Liaison Officer (ILO) of the University in working with small and medium-sized university spin-outs. Through the Anglia Enterprise Network two venture scouts were employed in the University identifying potential businesses, assisting in finding additional management and fund raising. Some 50 potential businesses were identified and passed over to the ILO for further support.
The Centre works with the Judge Business School to provide reference material for research, and assisted in the establishment of the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre. SJIC also helped the Cambridge University Engineering Department in the establishment of the Institute for Manufacturing.
Since 2003, SJIC has been closely involved with the i10 project, which brought together all the universities and Higher Education institutions in the East of England. SJIC's role is to assist in the development of technology transfer skills within each of the institutions, and to help identify and pursue opportunities for technology transfer.
Although most of the centre's tenants are start-up and early-stage companies operating in a wide range of leading-edge technologies, there are some long-standing residents who have maintained offices despite expanding to other locations, both within the UK and internationally. Around 60 companies are located on the site, employing over 300 people. Over a five-year period the survival rate for companies is over 88%, compared to about 50% for other similar businesses in the Cambridge area, and 45% for businesses generally in the UK. [9] Unlike other innovation centres, St John's Innovation Centre is also home to a number of companies offering services to the tenants, such as marketing, accountancy, legal services etc. This was a deliberate decision in the early days of the centre, to foster a diverse business community within the building. SJIC also offer a virtual tenancy package – the Star Service – which enables small companies to use SJIC as their business address, offers telephone, fax and post handling, and gives preferential access to meeting and conference rooms and business support services. The service has been used by numerous start-up companies prior to becoming a tenant.
The following companies all started life in St John's Innovation Centre:
Silicon Fen also known as the Cambridge Cluster, is the name given to the region around Cambridge, England, which is home to a large number of high tech businesses focused on software, electronics, and biotechnology, including Arm and AstraZeneca.
A science park is defined as being a property-based development that accommodates and fosters the growth of tenant firms and that is affiliated with a university based on proximity, ownership, and/or governance. This is so that knowledge can be shared, innovation promoted, technology transferred, and research outcomes progressed to viable commercial products. Science parks are also often perceived as contributing to national economic development, stimulating the formation of new high-technology firms, attracting foreign investment and promoting exports.
Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS, FREng, FInstP, CPhys is an Austrian entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England.
A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above.
Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley is a degree-granting branch campus of Carnegie Mellon University located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Mountain View, California. It was established in 2002 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field.
A technopole, commonly referred to as a high-technology cluster or tech hub, refers to a center of high-tech manufacturing and information-based quaternary industry. The term was coined by Allen J. Scott in 1990 to describe regions in Southern California which showed a rapid growth in high technology fields. This term now has a broader scope to describe regions worldwide dedicated to technological innovation. Such regions can be centers of rapid economic and technological growth as a result of agglomeration effects.
Doug Richard is an American entrepreneur best known for his television appearances in the United Kingdom. He appeared as a "Dragon" on the first two series of Dragons' Den and was also a government adviser.
IONA Technologies was an Irish software company founded in 1991. It began as a campus company linked to Trinity College Dublin had its headquarters in Dublin, and eventually also expanded its offices in Boston and Tokyo. It specialised in distributed service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology, its products connecting systems and applications by creating a network of services without requiring a centralised server or creating an information technology project. IONA was the first Irish company to float on the NASDAQ exchange. It was valued at up to US$1.75 billion at its peak. It was one of the world's 10 largest software-only companies, and around 30 new ventures spun out from it. IONA was sold to Progress Software in 2008.
Keele University Science and Innovation Park is a science and business development facility located on the campus of Keele University in North Staffordshire and was established in the mid-1980s. It is wholly owned by Keele University. The Science Park focuses to support the growth of innovative businesses, particularly those active in research and development within the West Midlands region by providing a location and a wide range of business support services.
Karen Richardson is an American executive. Her 30-year career in the software business includes positions in several companies.
Birmingham Science Park Aston, formerly known as Aston Science Park, is a science park located in Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. It is located adjacent to Aston University and the Eastside area.
The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) of the European Commission is meant to improve the competitiveness of European companies facing the challenges of globalization. The programme is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which will receive support for innovation activities, better access to finance and business support services. It will run from 2007 to 2013.
Micro Focus International plc was a British multinational software and information technology business based in Newbury, Berkshire, England. The firm provided software and consultancy. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange until it was acquired by the Canadian software firm OpenText in January 2023.
Bluenog is an enterprise software company. The company's flagship product is Bluenog ICE, an enterprise 2.0 application development platform built on pre-integrated open-source content management, collaboration, enterprise portal and business intelligence projects. Headquartered in Piscataway Township, N.J., Bluenog is also a Red Hat, Oracle and Actuate partner.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion is one of the Queen's Awards for Enterprise, and is awarded annually to people who play an outstanding role in promoting the growth of business enterprise and/or entrepreneurial skills in other people. It is bestowed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Recipients receive an engraved crystal glass commemorative item, a Grant of Appointment and are invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace.
For example, people who:
ip.access Limited is a multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and markets small cells technologies and infrastructure equipment for GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 4G and 5G. The company was acquired by Mavenir in September 2020.
Samanage, an enterprise service-desk and IT asset-management provider, has its headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. The company's flagship product, Samanage, operates as a multi-tenant, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) system for IT and enterprise service management. As of November 2018, Samanage had more than 1,800 customers in 50+ countries.
Vera is an enterprise data security and information rights management platform that provides encryption and tracks and controls digital information shared across users, devices, applications, and platforms. Vera gives developers access to its IRM-as-a-service (IRMaaS) platform via a REST API and downloadable software development kit.
