Shining a light on the invisible thread of our community
Nick Kirby, Managing Director of Cambridge Biomedical Campus Ltd, reflects on the Campus over the last 12 months and the year ahead
Like many others at this time of year, I welcome the opportunity to pause and reflect through a wider lens. This year brought a more personal insight into the brilliance of our campus community. Within the first three months of 2024, three of my immediate family – my mum, wife and son – had all benefited from care here. After 20 years working in and around hospitals, it was easier to spot where the joins between research and healthcare improved the care they received. Joint academic – NHS roles, specialist expertise rarely found outside centres of excellence, advanced diagnostics: the reality of how research and healthcare work best together – an invisible thread of collaboration that’s easy to miss. Amazing care made all the more amazing given the estate within which it was provided, by remarkable people working selflessly for others.
It’s made me reflect on how far the thread reaches, and how we can make it stronger. In 2024 we have started new ways to work with people in our local community and their political representatives. Our Local Voices Group, with its co-chair serving as an observer on our board, has informed plans for events and activities on campus, helped shape proposals for making better use of vacant spaces and provided valuable insights on how campus signage can be improved. The CBC Open Forum has provided a new channel for sharing updates and receiving feedback on our work with the public. The new briefings for local councillors have created a place for engaging with civic leaders. Each one a separate thread to help us better deliver our purpose to make the campus a better place, which is easier to get to, has more to offer local people and where people can make a lasting difference.
I want to take this chance to give my heartfelt thanks to those people around me – my team, members, partner organisations, the community across and beyond the campus – for everything that they have done. CBC Ltd is an organisation that delivers through the strength and breadth of so many relationships. Without this invisible string of personal connection, we couldn’t have achieved as much as we did this year, nor will we be able to accomplish what we want to in the year ahead, which I touch on below.
As many people take some well-earned time off to spend time with loved ones, I’d encourage you to think about the collaboration that goes unseen to many, and let’s all wrap it in proverbial Christmas lights to make the invisible thread a little more visible.
Highlights from our year on campus
- The publication of our housing report, providing a robust evidence base for our housing needs and steps required to ensure people can afford to live within a reasonable commute to the campus.
- The commitment from our board to a preferred option for a new laboratory facility dedicated to accelerating the incubation of new life sciences companies.
- The engagement with leaders in national government, including secretaries of state and the current chancellor, proving critical to securing investment in healthcare (£3m) and transport (£7m) on campus.
- Delivering a full programme of events and activities, including our first inclusive sports events for local schoolchildren and our first campus fun run, reaching over 700 runners with children from local schools participating for free as a result of the engagement through the British Heart Foundation.
- The growth of our choir to 100 members, bringing together staff from across the campus with people in the local community.
- Refreshing our 2050 Vision, restating our ambitions to create a world leading place for the success of healthcare, education and life sciences, reinforcing our commitment to have outstanding NHS services at its core.
- Being able to showcase all of this on our new website.
Our members have also delivered some amazing successes
- AstraZeneca completed the programme to deliver their fully operational global research headquarters and opened the new Hub, providing a space to eat and drink seven days a week, open to all.
- CRUK Cambridge Institute secured a further £174m to continue their world leading cancer research.
- University of Cambridge launched a £50m partnership with GSK in kidney and respiratory disease.
- CUH achieved the dual milestones of securing planning approval for the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and approval from Treasury for the new Children’s Hospital.
- The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology hosted the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, fresh off the back of her first Autumn Budget.
- Some of our partners were also part of a roundtable with ministers Patrick Vallance and Matthew Pennycook, hosted on Campus at the Heart and Lung Research Institute, to better understand life sciences in Cambridge.
- Danaher’s multimillion acquisition of Abcam has been successfully completed and provides a platform the long-term ambitions for a company that started its journey in Cambridge.
- And wider campus partners reached major milestones, including Prologis securing approval for £500m to complete the development of their land, adding three new life sciences buildings to 1000 Discovery Drive.
Looking ahead to 2025…
Keeping healthcare at our core
In 1948 the NHS was created, the seed from which our campus grew. Healthcare has always been at the heart of our campus and it remains so. As with the plans which emerged in the 1950s for a new cutting-edge hospital, today our local NHS leaders are committed to realising the 21st century equivalent – with the Cambridge Children’s Hospital, Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and emerging plans for acute healthcare. The commitment to these developments is shared by all CBC Ltd members and will remain a priority for collective action.
Helping people benefit from research on campus
Just as the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology began its story here in the 1960s, generating an astonishing sequence of groundbreaking discoveries, looking to the future we are exploring how the Campus can harness the incredible promise of unlocking the secrets of the brain to develop new treatments. At the other end of the chain from discovery into translation, we are also progressing work for the new incubator facility to help provide a home for the breakthroughs of tomorrow.
Ensuring affordable housing is not out of reach
Over recent years local people and staff on campus have highlighted the impact of growth on their lives. The option to live within a practical distance of their place of work is a reasonable expectation for people working here. The reality for local people is also too often characterised by housing that is beyond reach for the next generation. Worse, for many, the experience of congestion, the lack of connectivity and amenity has been a growing issue. The Campus needs to not just avoid adding to these challenges, but be part of how they are solved.
That’s why this year we set out clear terms for supporting proposals for the long-term development and expansion of the campus. Growth needs infrastructure – transport, housing, healthcare, utilities, water, schools and more. Without a breadth of infrastructure, growth will not be environmentally sustainable and its benefits will be for the few, not the many. In this, there has been a steadfast coalition across all levels of government and a desire to respond to the needs of local people.
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