Facilitated by Excellence First Enterprise Consultancy (EFEC)
14 November 2025 – Cambridge
The Glasshouse Boardroom at Botanic House hosted a proper roundtable bringing collectively representatives from Innovate Cambridge, Cambridge Ahead, the Department for Business & Trade, Anglia Ruskin University, Medilink Midlands, and EFEC, alongside a visiting delegation from Jiangsu Province. Facilitated by Excellence First Enterprise Consultancy (EFEC), the session enabled open, structured dialogue on how regional innovation ecosystems function, evolve, and assist scientific and technological improvement.
Visit from Jiangsu Province
The delegation from the Jiangsu Province Association for Science and Technology (JSAST), led by Deputy Director General Wenxin Yang, visited Cambridge as a part of a broader studying journey. They shared that Jiangsu is regarded inside China as one of many nation’s strongest innovation areas, with main efficiency in R&D funding, enterprise improvement, and utilized industrial innovation.
The delegation expressed their appreciation for the clear overview supplied by Cambridge colleagues, and in flip supplied insights into Jiangsu’s personal innovation system and its contribution to China’s nationwide science and expertise panorama.
Innovate Cambridge: A Regional Model with Global Relevance
The dialogue opened with an summary from Pashiini Supramaniam, Head of Ecosystem & Operations at Innovate Cambridge, who outlined the initiative’s function as a coordinating platform for area’s innovation. Key factors included:
- Cambridge’s place as a single entry level to 2 world-class universities, a mature industrial cluster, and native authorities.
- A tripartite ecosystem mannequin—academia, business, and authorities—that fosters shared technique and decision-making.
- Strengthening nationwide ties, with Cambridge more and more linked to different UK innovation areas similar to Manchester and the Midlands.
- A rising dedication to inclusive innovation, specializing in widening entry, social impression, and expertise mobility.
For the visiting delegation, this supplied a transparent overview of how Cambridge buildings and strengths its innovation capability. For the Cambridge stakeholders, it strengthened the worth of articulating the area’s distinctive mannequin to worldwide audiences.
Perspectives from Cambridge: Ambition and Regional Priorities
Duncan McCunn, Board Member at Cambridge Ahead, outlined a number of long-term ambitions for Cambridge’s innovation financial system:
- Doubling the variety of Cambridge-based unicorns.
- Increasing fairness funding within the area in direction of a long-term ambition of £20 billion.
- Ensuring that Cambridge continues to play a big function in shaping the UK’s innovation future.
These factors mirrored themes which are additionally more and more related in innovation-driven areas globally, together with Jiangsu, providing useful context for the broader dialog.
Bob Damms, Senior Life Science Investment Advisor at the Department for Business & Trade, shared nationwide context. He famous that:
- Life sciences stay the highest-impact innovation sector within the Cambridge area.
- Cambridge attracts 24% of the UK’s life sciences enterprise capital.
- Corporate funding into the area’s life sciences sector far exceeds fairness funding, signalling robust maturity.
- Government consideration is increasing in direction of sectors similar to semiconductors, digital expertise, and AI, all of that are more and more important in world innovation discussions.
This strengthened Cambridge’s standing inside the world innovation panorama and supplied a helpful reference level for the delegation.
University–Industry Collaboration: ARU’s Applied Innovation Role
Dr Beverley Vaughan, Director of ARU’s Arise Innovation Hubs, supplied perception into how Anglia Ruskin University helps early-stage enterprises and analysis commercialisation. She highlighted:
- The significance of accessible innovation assist for SMEs creating well being, med-tech, and expertise options.
- The worth of utilized analysis and translational science in strengthening regional innovation capability.
- Previous worldwide engagement, together with programmes that enabled innovators from Cambridge to realize market insights in Shanghai.
Her contribution helped current a fuller image of Cambridge’s numerous innovation infrastructure past the college–business relationships historically related to the area.
Shared Themes and Areas of Synergy
Despite variations in scale and context, the dialogue revealed pure areas of resonance between Cambridge and Jiangsu—from analysis translation and high-value expertise improvement to school–business collaboration. Participants famous that ongoing dialogue might assist each areas develop a clearer understanding of how every defines and measures innovation significance, creating alternatives for complementary improvement rooted in mutual perception.
This alternate demonstrated how EFEC’s facilitation can assist bridge innovation techniques, enabling secure, structured, and significant conversations that assist long-term, ecosystem-level understanding—an method that aligns with the mission behind EFEC’s rising UK–China Life Sciences Innovation Hub.
Purpose and Outcomes of the Exchange
The session was designed as an exploratory dialog, giving individuals area to share views on ecosystem buildings, expertise pathways, analysis commercialisation, and the evolving roles of universities, companies, and native networks.
Chaired by Costa Philippou (Medilink Midlands) and facilitated by EFEC, the dialogue mirrored Cambridge’s capability to have interaction worldwide guests thoughtfully and constructively.
For Cambridge colleagues, the roundtable supplied a chance to articulate the area’s strengths and perceive how innovation is organised elsewhere.
For the Jiangsu delegation, it supplied a significant introduction to Cambridge’s distinctive method to innovation governance and collaboration.
Disclaimer: This article is EFEC’s impartial account of the roundtable and doesn’t characterize formal positions of any collaborating organisations.