Writing in a comment piece for Estates Gazette, she described life sciences as the UK’s “road to Damascus” and said that the sector’s “potential would blow you away”.
Science needs to be at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy, Jackie added, “in a way that encourages our universities, entrepreneurs and corporations to scale up all their great ideas.”
The relationship between universities and spin-out entrepreneurs needs to be levelled up, she continued, along with better funding conditions. And she had a stark message for the property industry: “It is simply not good enough to take your redundant office stock and just rebrand it as life sciences real estate, hoping for the best. You need to actively listen – and acutely understand – what science entrepreneurs can tell us about how they use space. They are nothing like office tenants.”
Jackie’s comments drew on her recent visit to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was a guest speaker at the World Real Estate Forum hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
