On 7th April, our Managing Director Sarah Haywood had the opportunity to join a delegation from the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor for a visit to Paris. The visit provided an opportunity to explore two very different incubator and accelerator locations within the city.
Station F
Station F is an entrepreneur-backed centre for tech entrepreneurs and innovators, providing a home to around 1,000 start-up companies at any one time. As well as providing a supported location for innovators, Station F also benefits from a group of ‘corporates’ that provide education, acceleration, mentorship, support and, in some instances, investment into companies based in the centre.
Alongside the innovation centre, there is a separate food court containing multiple bars and food venues, not only accessible to Station F companies but also open to the public. Each day, this venue serves over 3,000 meals. There is also a dedicated events and conferencing space, which, on the day of the visit, was hosting a lively tech event.
Members of the delegation had the opportunity to hear from the Station F team as well as see presentations from three companies located within the innovation centre. It would be fair to say that the scale and size of Station F is not only impressive but also beyond anything that currently exists within the UK. Being located in France’s capital city, it benefits from excellent transport and connectivity infrastructure, making it a great location for convening and supporting companies.
Paris Santé Campus
The delegation also visited Paris Santé Campus, a hub for medtech and digital health technologies. Again, members had the opportunity to hear from companies being incubated within the campus and to learn about the interface with academic research and spin-out activity from academic institutions.
A Powerful Delegation
Although the Oxford to Cambridge Supercluster Board frequently acts as a convener of stakeholders from across the corridor region, particularly through the annual Oxford to Cambridge Supercluster Conference (the next of which will be held in June at the QEII Centre in London), it was fantastic to have the opportunity to bring together such a powerful delegation of representatives from across the region.
The group included academic, business, government, investor and real estate development professionals drawn from across the whole Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor. The delegation also benefited from colleagues joining from Liverpool and Manchester, demonstrating how growth corridors in the North and South of the UK can work together. Not only did the visit provide an opportunity to promote the region in a coherent way through joined-up thinking and cross-sectoral representation, it also represented a genuine example of Entente Cordiale and a clear intention to strengthen relationships between the UK and France.
Reflections
It is always incredibly valuable to have the opportunity to look at different ways of doing things, to learn from others and to take time to think about how we can apply what we have seen to our local systems. At a time when Oxfordshire is thinking about how it approaches inward investment and how it can better support the acceleration of companies within the region, in part through the work of Equinox, it is particularly valuable to see and experience the ways in which innovators and entrepreneurs are being supported in a different ecosystem.
I feel very privileged to have had the chance to be part of the delegation, so ably led by Andy Williams and Matt Allen from the Supercluster Board. We concluded the day with a simply wonderful reception at the British Ambassador’s residence in central Paris; what an amazing location to draw the delegation’s work to a close.
