Innovation in a local authority: a London borough develops partnerships for growth Hammersmith and Fulham Council begins to see its strategy taking shape for becoming ‘a beacon of innovation and growth’.

The Council aims to turn the borough into ‘West Tech’, a leading place for technical and creative businesses, education and research.

At present the Borough is a mixed bag: it has many small businesses, a number of educational establishments, a thriving arts scene, several large hospitals, and the headquarters of several large national/international companies – for all of which it has conceived a vision: to transform the borough into ‘a global beacon of innovation and growth’.

It has set out a daunting list of objectives – under three heads:

1.  Make White City and Imperial’s new campus a ‘destination’ and a world class innovation district
2. Make the borough a top choice to attract businesses from the UK and internationally
3. Ensure residents benefit from the changes they see.

Economic opportunities are anchored in the growth of Imperial’s new campus at White City, which will become a centre of discovery and innovation by virtue of its excellence in research and education in science, medicine and social enterprise. There is an accompanying arts strategy, though it is based not on funds but on facilitating innovation; and an accompanying strategy relating to the substantial presence of the education sector in the borough.

In Autumn 2018 Chemistry became the first of Imperial’s departments to move from South Kensington to White City, taking up residence at the Molecular Science Research Hub, which brings together nearly 800 scientists, clinicians, engineers and business partners and houses the latest equipment and infrastructure. A Deep Tech network is launched this May encouraging interaction with the aim of addressing common challenges such as in energy, healthcare and sustainability.

The campus’s iHub will house corporate partners, fast growth companies and startups. Hammersmith Hospital is to become a hub round which businesses can be co-located based on multi-disciplinary research in health and well-being.

The growth of clusters of technology, media and telecoms businesses will be supported with new land development policies, among them for affordable workspaces, and venture capital funding.

A number of parties including Imperial have enabled the creation of a low-cost ‘park’ for bio startups – in the Old Laundry Yard alongside Shepherds Bush Market, where a property company has been persuaded to locate 45 shipping containers, into each of which a smart little office has been constructed. Since completion about six months ago, four bio businesses have moved in, occupying about a quarter of these containers.

For the last 18 months, a joint venture between Hammersmith and Fulham and Imperial called Upstream – effectively a mini speed-dating agency –has run increasingly compelling events to bring sparkling people together, to picture the possibilities of the Innovation Hub, and identify the problems (recruitment, training, communications etc)

Among it successes has been working with a local organisation whose focus is venture building, and which is now partnering Imperial in constructing a building called ScaleSpace – for hi-growth young businesses.

These huge and all-embracing plans will be led by a new business growth team, whose head, recently appointed, brings experience of the Kings Cross development in Camden. ‘He will need to stimulate enthusiasm for enterprise… in a borough that has high birth and death rates for new businesses.’

While the overall objectives sound grandiose, encouragingly the Council and Imperial have both endorsed strategies that embrace each other.

John Whatmore, July 2019