Companies at Norwich Research Park will have access to up to £100m of funding to help find solutions to tackle the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Climate and impact investor Greensphere Capital has launched the Gaia Sciences Innovation partnership with funding of £75m already available to invest in businesses emerging from world-leading bioscience and environmental science institutes based in the UK.
The full fund is expected to close at £100m in early 2025.
The funding will be available to businesses based at Norwich Research Park’s six partner organisations: the Earlham Institute, John Innes Centre, Quadram Institute, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of East Anglia.
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the organisation that manages Norwich Research Park, said: “This is fantastic news and provides researchers here at Norwich Research Park with a great opportunity to turn their ideas into credible businesses.
“Much of the research conducted at Norwich Research Park is truly ground-breaking on a global scale but often the solutions that are discovered to some of the greatest challenges we face in the areas of biodiversity loss and climate change cannot be fast tracked because of the lack of investment available.
“Having the Gaia Sciences Innovation fund available now means that many more breakthrough discoveries will have a much better chance of being translated into sustainable businesses.
“This will be great news, not just for Norwich Research Park, but for Norwich and the county of Norfolk as a whole as it offers the potential for more jobs, a greater contribution to the local economy and attracting much needed external investment.”
Divya Seshamani, managing Partner at Greensphere Capital, said: “We are very excited about the huge potential our fund can unlock at science hubs such as the one at Norwich Research Park.
“With four world-leading research institutes, one of the UK’s best universities, and a top university hospital all on one site, it is in a unique position in the UK to advance thinking and solutions to those biodiversity loss and climate change issues that are in most urgent need of our attention.”
Divya Seshamani will be speaking at Norwich Research Park’s next Enterprise Tuesday event on November 26.
The free event is open to all and is being held at the John Innes Conference Centre, beginning at 1.30pm.
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