Head of Science and Technology Strategy in Cambridge

About the Wellcome Genome Campus: WGCL is the owner, operator and developer of the Wellcome Genome Campus, which is located nine miles south of Cambridge, within an established life science cluster and ecosystem. WGCL and the Campus are owned by a world-renowned endowment fund that is committed to expanding its existing campus into a global centre for genomics, biodata sciences and associated technologies. The plans that are underway will grow the Campus from 125 acres to 440 acres. They include new lab space and translation workspace, hotel facilities and 1500 homes, new retail, food and drink, sports, health and fitness, nursery, primary school, play area and other community facilities. All connected by new, inclusive routes and civic spaces, parks, gardens and bridges; and connected to new microgrid power and ambient loop heating networks, with photovoltaics, heat pumps, battery storage and other technologies providing resilient and affordable energy and shifting the Campus towards net zero carbon. As part of the changes, WGCL is taking the existing barriers and gates away. A renowned but closed science campus is evolving into an open, welcoming destination. A new thriving town.

WGCL is the newly formed company and team tasked with leading the Campus and its expansion, and the project is already in full flow, with highway and enabling works completed and the first new buildings on the expansion land having started on site. Ultimately WGCL is about creating the best place to live and work, engaging with a world-wide audience and facilitating world-class science. Artificial Intelligence, big data and technology are the future of our life sciences, and social value will form an integral part of this vision and of the campus identity.

Key Responsibilities:

• Executive leadership of the Science and Technology strategy, working to the CEO and the Chair of the Campus Science and Technology Advisory Group (STAG), in shaping and implementing a forward-looking science and technology strategy.
• Contributing to the creation and ongoing evolution of the science and technology strategy and undertaking or commissioning research required to evolve and implement the strategy.
• Investigating, leading and implementing projects arising from the strategy, working with leaders across the Campus, Wellcome Trust (WT) and other organisations on funding, delivery, operating models and business plans.
• STAG meeting orchestration, liaison with STAG members and associated stakeholder management.
• Working with key stakeholders including Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI), WT, Health Data Research Service (HDRS) and European Bioinformatics Institute of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI) on the mutual science offer between and to all ecosystem occupiers, the campus approach to partnership and collaboration, pre-competitive exclusivity, technology transfer, licensing and spin-outs, entrepreneurism and translation.
• Key components of the campus offer to be codified in an aspirational Campus Charter, used to promote the Campus and engage potential occupiers.
• Shaping, owning and enabling delivery of key elements of the science and technology strategy and charter.
• Owning relationships for the campus with senior decision-makers from across the global omics, data and AI ecosystem.
• Owning and leading the relationship with the appointed operator/manager for new incubator and accelerator facilities within the Campus including The Sequence which will open in early 2028.
• Responsibility for running the management contract and ensuring the incubator and accelerator meet their KPIs.
• Working with WT Discovery Research on the positioning of the Campus within the Wellcome mission.
• Consider how the expanding Campus can be a focus of translational activity across WT and more ‘front and centre’, leveraging better the wider context of Wellcome science, for the benefit of all occupiers.
• Working with Wellcome Sanger Institute on a joint approach to/model for supporting translation at the Campus, acting as the WGCL lead on collaboration with the WSI translation team to frame and implement that joint approach/model.
• Nurturing and supporting translation and commercial activity within WSI and the Campus generally for the benefit of the Campus ecosystem including WGCL support for/representation on the WSI Translation Fund.
• Identifying any barriers or disincentives within the current Sanger and/or Campus operating model(s) and how these can be addressed or unlocked.
• Promoting / setting up / securing support for seed/VC funding to support or sit alongside the formation and growth of spin-out, start up and scale up companies at the Campus.
• Mapping how the science strategy creates opportunities to retain and attract the best talent, develop skills and utilise alumni networks to support future science.
• Working with EMBL-EBI and HDRS similarly on collaboration opportunities, translation and commercial activities, talent, skills and alumni.
• Supporting the WGCL real estate team on the science positioning of any new data centre on the campus expansion.
• Acting as a senior link between the science strategy/STAG and the WGC leasing team.
• Liaising with STAG members on potential new occupiers, senior contacts and relationships with those potential new occupiers and the potential interaction/fit with WGC science.
• Providing the leasing and marketing teams with briefings on the science opportunities and priorities of potential new occupiers.
• Attending introductory meetings with potential science partners/occupiers/government, as required, to best represent the WGC science strategy, science charter and the opportunities they represent.
• Attending meetings with leasing and marketing teams (internal) and agencies (external) as required, for example to ensure marketing collateral best represent the science strategy, science charter and the opportunities they represent.