The Babraham Research Campus brings together world-class research and life science businesses in an environment with a common culture to promote innovation and strengthen links between academia and the commercial world. Campus businesses operate in a supportive infrastructure with access to laboratories and offices on short-term tenancies with the opportunity to grow into larger space as the company evolves. 

The most recent review of the Campus’ economic impact, published in 2020, has shown that being located in the cluster has meant that the tenant scaleups are 20% larger in terms of headcount than they would otherwise have been. Furthermore, the GVA impact of the operational activities of the Campus on the UK economy more than tripled over the period 2011-18, from £80m in 2011/12 to £286m in 2017/18.

Biomed@Babraham has recently launched two brand new scaleup buildings providing 100,000 square feet of R&D space. The new buildings can extend the pipeline of company life on Campus, from businesses starting at a very early stage right through to having their own building on site. 

Access to funding sources is provided by the site hosting Venture Capital investors and each year there is a Babraham Investor Conference which brings investors and companies seeking investment together. Networking events include “show and tell” sessions for major pharmaceutical companies and investors. Campus residents have raised over £1.2bn to date, with more than £300m raised in 2018 according to the latest figures.

Additional support from the 5-month Accelerate@Babraham programme is provided to ambitious life science companies via a competition. Successful companies win a cash prize and can access consultancy, specialist equipment, skills training and leadership capacity-building as well as mentoring. The third cohort started the programme in Autumn 2020.

The Campus remained open to tenant companies throughout the pandemic with appropriate measures in-place, enabling those working on a response to Covid to continue accessing scientific services and facilities.

Babraham Research Campus [Annual Review 2020] website