Imperial Innovations
Imperial Innovations sees incubation not as an initiative driven by property performance but as a support tool for its business and research ecoystem – something which it advised us that it wanted to establish and grow at the time of bringing us into work with it on looking at the next step of its planned evolution.
Creative Places was bought in to help the management team at Imperial Innovations to answer questions around current and projected demand for commercial laboratory space within London and the surrounding areas; to help project occupancy levels for the proposed new incubator at Imperial West; to guide on services essential for an Incubator of this kind; and to advise on potential rental values.
Our advice was that answers to these questions lay in understanding the international, national and regional trends at work in research and R&D, and looking closely at demand and supply in the London area. We also sought to reference potential take up rates in any new incubation space to experiences of other incubators and innovation centres across the UK – using our database that records all this detail.
Our work was enabled the the Imperial Innovations Incubator Manager and team to put forward a full and researched business plan for the leasing of new innovation space to be created at Imperial West in 2016.
Objective analysis, supported by clear data, gave the College confidence to plan for the operation of incubator/innovation activity at Imperial West with confidence.