Over the past few years, we have witnessed the rise of the supercampus across the globe. Here East in London is part of an international phenomenon that includes the likes of RDM Campus in Rotterdam, Euratechnologies in Lille, and MaRS in Toronto. I predict that 2019 will see a huge boost in the rise of the supercampus globally.
The way we work and collaborate has changed dramatically in recent years. There’s not an element of business that has been untouched by innovation, and where we work is no different.
The digital revolution has breathed new life into the business landscape and in doing so has shifted our idea of how companies are coming together to collaborate.
The vast influx of start-ups and scale-ups has led to a boom in co-working and flexible spaces that serve small teams and individuals. It is in these spaces some of the most innovative and disruptive companies have found new solutions to real world problems and as these start-ups continue to push forward their sectors, large traditional businesses have themselves often been forced to re-assess their own strategies to accommodate the dramatic shifts that have taken place.
A ‘supercampus’ offers the solution. Whilst they are not co-working spaces, they provide a place where companies can come together to collaborate as well as offering a flexibility to promote and scale growth. Rather than accepting any business who can pay the rent, what makes a supercampus tick is the work that goes into the careful curation of clients. They attract companies that want to add value – companies that are natural born collaborators. Whether they are a scale-up, academic institution or global company – they come to a supercampus because they want to innovate, collaborate, and participate in the wide network this creates.
In addition to this, a supercampus tends to have the convening ability to gather people, and to make those connections. Innovation is at its best when companies can collaborate over a common goal with the help of on-site delivery of cross-sector innovation programmes or interventions.
This is their vision: to provide a space to combine both big and small whilst keeping an eye open for the “different” that can really make a huge impact.
It’s clear that the rise of the supercampus has begun. Over the last two years, these new sites have drawn the attention of tech giants, world class academic institutions, leading global businesses and public-sector organisations alike.
This leads me to predict that in 2019, we will see the rise of this next generation of work space that accommodates a new way of thinking, which in turn will lead to an increase in collaboration across these supercampus sites on an international level.
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