History and philosophy

The St John's Innovation Park was established by St John's College on land owned by the College since 1534. The Innovation Centre itself was completed in 1987. A second phase, Dirac House, was completed in July 1989 and a third phase, the Jeffreys Building, in February 1990. An extension to the Innovation Centre including restaurant and conference facilities was opened in 1994. Two further buildings on the Park (the Vitrum and Tality Buildings) were completed in 2001.

The management company, St John's Innovation Centre Ltd, was incorporated to:-

• Enable the College to maximise the return on its investment by the efficient professional management
  of the Park
• Provide a supportive environment for tenant businesses by providing quality, cost-effective services.
• Provide an environment in which technology transfer and innovation are promoted to assist small and medium-sized businesses at a local, national and international level.

St John's College, as an educational charity, has a legal responsibility to ensure that its investments produce commercial returns. The College uses the entire rental income from the Park to support activities in line with its core objectives such as Fellowships, Bursaries, College Library and other educational purposes. The Centre is not in receipt of any direct public sector funding for its core activities and therefore has to take on consultancy assignments to build up its business support team and defray the costs of any expansion of its activities. The Centre also delivers a number of programmes on behalf of regional, national and European public bodies.

In 1995, St John's Innovation Centre Ltd was accredited as a Business Innovation Centre (BIC) by the European Commission and is a full member of the European Business and Innovation Centres Network (EBN). The Park has been a member of the United Kingdom Science Parks Association (UKSPA) since 1987 and United Kingdom Business Incubation (UKBI) since 1999.

Despite the financial constraints, the consultancy team's involvement in activities off-site have been widely recognised as being valuable in the evolution of Cambridge's high-technology cluster [Segal Quince Wicksteed, Evaluation of St John's Innovation Park and Cambridge Science Park, 1997/8]. In 1998 the Innovation Centre took over the responsibility for running the Innovation Relay Centre for the East of England, and this has proved a useful addition to the services available to regional businesses.