Harry Destecroix
CEO, Science Creates
Innovative partnerships between academics, business incubators and start-up companies are helping transform Bristol into a global deep tech hub – with new career paths for talented students.
Partnerships between the University of Bristol, business incubators and start-up companies in the city are helping Bristol evolve into a leading hub for ‘deep tech’ – technologies that provide solutions in science and engineering.
From scientists to entrepreneurs
One of the key drivers in this endeavour is Science Creates, a deep tech incubator that provides vital support for a growing community of start-up companies – many of them spun out from ground-breaking research discoveries made at the university.
Founded and led by scientist and entrepreneur Dr Harry Destecroix, Science Creates provides three key ingredients to help deep tech firms flourish: purpose-built research facilities; targeted investment and a specialist network of academics, partners, investors and service providers.
“Bristol has a unique opportunity to grow deep tech facilities, right in the city centre,” says Dr Destecroix. “These companies have a high level of ambition and we’re working to remove barriers so they can invent the future and have a real impact on the world.”
Relationships between Bristol alumni, academics, partners and university and industry leaders is a crucial part of this – and offers exciting new career pathways for students in areas such as quantum engineering, synthetic biology and pharmaceuticals.
Bristol has a unique opportunity
to grow deep tech facilities,
right in the city centre.
A new ecosystem
Dr Destecroix, a former Bristol PhD student, is himself no stranger to deep tech success. He originally set up Science Creates to provide lab space for his own spin-out company, Ziylo, and saw that company’s pioneering ‘smart insulin’ technology purchased by the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk in 2018 as part of a deal that could lead to new treatments for type 1 diabetes.
As it continues to grow, the deep tech ecosystem in Bristol will benefit from many other key initiatives, including the Engine Shed collaboration space; Bristol VR lab; SETsquared) and the forthcoming Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus and Quantum Technologies Innovation Centre.