Innovation park launches co-working space

A new shared workspace which claims to put early-stage businesses at the heart one of the East Midlands’ research hotspots has opened in Nottingham.

The co-working space at the University of Nottingham Innovation Park (UNIP) is housed inside the Ingenuity Centre off Triumph Road.

The building also houses office space for a number of research-based enterprises and the Haydn Green Institute for Enterprise and Innovation, which helps people develop entrepreneurial skills.

The Ingenuity Centre’s co-working space has 20 desks, and is already home to eight businesses.

UNIP has more than 100 businesses based on the site, which was once the home of Raleigh Bicycles – an icon of Nottingham’s industrial heritage.

Dr Mark Tock, operations director at UNIP, said: “The launch of our co-working space reflects two things. Firstly, an increasing demand for co-working space, which is poorly served outside Nottingham city centre. Secondly, our ambition to grow our community by nurturing businesses before they need their own office space.”

He added: “Typically, tech entrepreneurs or tech-based consultancies will benefit from being part of a wider community.

“In this case, they are part of a real entrepreneurial hub which traces the journey from high-end research in fields like digital technologies, aerospace and engineering to the commercialisation of knowledge, student entrepreneurship and larger-scale businesses.

“So our co-working space ultimately offers the potential to connect and collaborate with a strong and well-established community which presents so many opportunities.”

Kevin Taylor of BeamCalculations.co.uk

Among the first wave of businesses to move into the Ingenuity Centre’s co-working space is BeamCalculations.co.uk, a specialist structural engineering consultancy run by Kevin Taylor. It provides web-based structural engineering calculations and reports for the building industry, aiming to deliver fast, accurate reports at lower cost.

“I’ve gone on the typical small business journey, working from home or trying a number of other co-working spaces,” Taylor said. “What I’ve found is that there are simply too many distractions at home when you have a young family, while the other spaces I’ve looked at have been either too out of the way or involve commuting into a city.

“For me, Ingenuity has a real start-up vibe to it. There are other software-based businesses here, which gives opportunities for cross-pollination, and being on an innovation park like this means I’ve got access to several different cafes and a great campus environment.”

The launch of the co-working space at the Ingenuity Building comes as UNIP prepares to mark its 10th anniversary.

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