New power bloc merges minds to drive Cambridge S & T upsurge

The association of mega-minds propels the city to a light blue heaven as it seeks to lead a surge in business for the UK in worldwide life science and hi-tech markets.

Innovate Cambridge’s inaugural Advisory Council will be chaired by Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser (UKRI) and include Baroness Sally Morgan, Roxanne Varza (Station F), Tim Rowe (Cambridge Innovation Centre, US), Stan Boland (FiveAI, Icera, Fractile) plus entrepreneurial investor Dr Hermann Hauser along with other business brains.

The Council is designed to empower Cambridge’s mission to become a global centre for responsible innovation to drive growth and tangible benefits for society.

Support for the initiative comes from the likes of Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca and BioMed Realty – headquartered in California – and is geared to enhance capabilities across academia, industry and public services in a bid to drive 60,000 net new direct jobs.

Inspired by thriving ecosystems such as Boston’s Kendall Square, the Advisory Council is being marketed as first of its kind for a UK city. It unites expertise across all the major components required to deliver a globally leading, inclusive innovation ecosystem that packs a punch across policy, investment, corporate and technology issues.

The Council will guide the region’s development in frontier technologies, including AI, life sciences and quantum computing, underlining Cambridge’s ambition to be the planet’s pole star of tech and innovation.

Announced by growth tsar Sir Patrick Vallance in Cambridge today, the Advisory Council experts have been chosen for their exceptional track records and experience across scientific research, technology development, innovation policy and commercial enterprise.

The Council is designed to catalyse the Cambridge ecosystem’s potential to deliver substantial societal, environmental and economic benefits regionally and nationally in line with the Innovate Cambridge Strategy and in response to the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy plans, to provide jobs for the future and improve people’s everyday lives.

Collectively inaugural Council members hold 12 PhDs, have founded or funded more than 400 companies, raised over $5 billion in venture capital and startup investment, and scaled businesses and corporations to multi-billion dollar valuations.

The Innovation Advisory Council is a key milestone for the Cluster, which is publishing its Innovate Cambridge blueprint, setting ambitious targets for the city and region for the next 10 years.

This includes doubling the rate of unicorn creation, doubling venture capital investment, creating twice as many science and innovation companies and generating 60,000 net new direct jobs to ensure Cambridge and the UK are globally competitive.

Recent achievements include launching The Glasshouse, supported by Railpen, to unlock the full potential of the Cambridge ecosystem, securing Government endorsement for a national Innovation Hub and creating the Cambridge Pledge to encourage founders to pledge a meaningful percentage of future wealth, and companies and anchor institutions to make charitable donations to tackle inequality in the region.

AWS is providing office hours at The Glasshouse to Cambridge startups, along with free technical and business support as well as credits through AWS Activate Providers including Cambridge Enterprise and Cambridge Innovation Capital.

AstraZeneca, which champions scientific collaboration and open research environments, has funded more than 150 PhD studentships at the University of Cambridge and provides expert mentors to Cambridge start-up companies and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Biomed Realty will launch Velocity Labs+ at its Granta Park site. A first for the UK, this is a new model which enables companies to scale their labs and office space on-demand in line with their business requirements.

Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, Regius Professor of Botany at University of Cambridge, CEO of UK Research and Innovation and Innovation Council Chair, said: “Cambridge represents a unique convergence of scientific excellence, entrepreneurial spirit and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

“The Innovation Advisory Council wants to harness the city and region’s strong foundations to establish the UK as a global leader for responsible tech progress that creates inclusive opportunities and benefits, locally, nationally and globally.”

Dr Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director at Innovate Cambridge, added: “Cambridge is the beating heart of UK R & D and we want to turn this into social and economic impact for the whole country.

“To achieve this as well as make our mark on the global stage, we need input and collaboration with global leaders to work with us to share knowledge, expertise, investment and talent.

“As the potential of technologies such as AI grows, all stakeholders across government, local authorities, business, education and research must work together to give the UK the best opportunity to create innovation-driven growth.”

Hermann Hauser, Founding Partner at Amadeus Capital and co-founder of Arm, said: “Everyone wants to reap the benefits of AI and technology but they’re not all ready to understand the potential challenges these advancements will bring.

“I’m looking forward to working closely with visionaries and experts on the Innovation Advisory Council to drive forward Cambridge’s potential, critically analyse how new technologies are being developed and implemented and ensure everyone across the UK benefits from this technological revolution.”

Inaugural Cambridge Innovation Council members

Chair - Prof. Dame Ottoline Leyser, Regius Professor of Botany, University of Cambridge

Anne Bailey, CEO & Co-Founder, Form the Future CIC

Kerry Baldwin, Co-Founder, IQ Capital

Edward Benthall, Chair Person, Cambridge Innovation Capital

Stan Boland, Founder, FiveAI and Icera Inc

Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner, Balderton Capital

Dr David Cleevely, Chairman, Royal Academy of Engineering and Cambridge Ahead

Vanessa Colomar, Adviser and Investor, Invoke Capital

Prof Diane Coyle, Co-Director, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge

Prof. Zoubin Ghahramani, VP at Google DeepMind and Professor of Information Engineering, University of Cambridge

Shaun Grady, Chair, AstraZeneca UK

Dom Hallas, Executive Director, Startup Coalition

Michael Chen, CEO and Co-founder, Nuclera

Dr Hermann Hauser, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist and Inventor, Amadeus Capital

Prof. Richard Jones, Vice-President for Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement, University of Manchester

Prof. Tim Minshall, Professor of Innovation, Head of Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge

Baroness Sally Morgan, Master of Fitzwilliam College, Chair of Cambridge University Hospitals

Olu Orugboh, Chair, Cambridge Wireless

Prof. Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge

Dr Jim Reddoch, Executive Vice President, Investments & CSO, Royalty Pharma

Timothy Rowe, Founder and CEO, Cambridge Innovation Center

Anna Rule, Director of Private Markets and Real Assets, Railpen

Prof. Jennifer Schooling, Professor of Digital Innovation and Smart Places, Anglia Ruskin University

Prof. Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero / Professor of Environmental Data Science, University of Cambridge

Roxanne Varza, Director, STATION F.